In Love And War
by Jade II
Summary: Draco Malfoy is certain of his role in life, and quite happy with it to boot. That is, until what he sees as harmless fun leads to something a lot more complicated.
1. Chapter 1

"_Crucio_!" 

The girl screamed. 

Draco grinned, holding his wand steady. His father had brought this Muggle girl home for him to play with. He was quite enjoying himself. 

He lowered his wand and looked at her. 

"Had enough, have you?" he asked. 

The girl nodded, sobbing loudly. 

Draco shrugged. "Too bad." He leant against the wall. "_Crucio!_" he cried again. 

He smiled as he watched the girl strain against the chains that held her. She was around his age, with long, brown hair and big brown eyes. She reminded him a little of Hermione Granger. 

He lowered his wand again and went to stand in front of her. "Aww, poor girl..." he said, stroking her cheek. "Not having fun?" He moved his hand downwards. "You know there are... _other_ things we could do..." 

"Draco." 

Draco's head snapped around as he leapt away from her. "Yes, Father?" 

"It's time for dinner. Could you... finish off here?" 

"Yes, Father." Draco turned back to the girl. "Sorry, no time to play. I have to go to bed early, you see. I'm going back to school tomorrow." 

He stood back and raised his wand. 

"Avada Kedavra!" 

His father smiled at him as the girl slumped to the floor. Then they went upstairs for a nice family dinner. 


	2. Chapter 2

When Draco arrived on Platform 9 ¾ the first thing he saw was Harry Potter. More accurately, he saw a group of girls surrounding Ron Weasley and someone with black hair whose face was hidden by the girls' heads. Still, it was undoubtedly Potter. Half the girls in the school had been following Ron and him around ever since they had saved a bunch of people from a drunk Death Eater who had wandered onto the school grounds in the middle of the last Quidditch match and started to curse people. 

Draco himself was just amazed at the stupidity of all concerned. 

Still, he grinned as he remembered what his father had told him about the Death Eater's punishment. From what Draco could gather it had been extremely painful and humiliating. He wished he could've been there. 

But no, Draco couldn't attend most of the meetings until he got the Dark Mark and became a fully fledged Death Eater, which couldn't happen until he had finished at Hogwarts or the Mark would arouse suspicion. For his final two years there he would just have to hear about things second-hand from his father, which was fine by him. His father had told him to keep an eye out on people and keep him informed of what they did and didn't know about Lord Voldemort's plans. Draco sort of liked the idea of being a spy. It made him feel important. He also had a few other orders, but he was only allowed to discuss them with Pansy and Blaise, unless he wanted to be "tortured in ways he couldn't even imagine for all eternity". 

He rather didn't. 

He said goodbye to his mother, then got on the train and found an empty compartment. While he waited for Crabbe and Goyle to come and find him he amused himself by watching the people on the platform. He imagined what would happen to them when Lord Voldemort was in power. 

Potter would certainly be dead, which was reason enough to support Voldemort as far as Draco was concerned. Some of the Weasleys would probably be joining Harry, others might be forced to serve the Death Eaters under the Imperio curse. The thought of doing whatever he wanted with Ginny Weasley was certainly enticing. And as for all the Mudbloods... Draco imagined there would be a mass execution, preferably with a lot of blood and pain. Hermione Granger would scream, and Draco would laugh. The mere thought of it made him smile. 

Unfortunately, Crabbe and Goyle would remain exactly the same as they were now: extremely stupid. Draco had just seen them walk across the platform in front of his window and not even notice him. Of course he wasn't going to embarrass himself by waving, so it looked like he was in for a long wait until they had reached the other end of the train and, not having found him, would get on and walk back, pausing to stare into every compartment. 

Sometimes they were just exasperating. 

At that moment Pansy and Millicent walked into the compartment. Obviously they _had_ seen him from the platform. He smiled at them as they sat down opposite him, making them giggle. He knew they both fancied him, but unfortunately his father had ordered him to leave the Slytherin girls alone. That of course meant that he had to make do with girls from other houses, most of whom weren't nearly as interesting as the ones he couldn't have. Maybe it would be different if he got to know them a little... but he just couldn't be bothered. 

When the train started to move Crabbe and Goyle still hadn't arrived. Excusing himself to the girls, Draco wandered out into the corridor to look for them. Walking past the different compartments, he heard excited chattering after he passed most of them. He smiled to himself. Sex God Draco. Oh yes, that was him. 

Then he heard Potter's voice. Grinning, he leaned in the doorway, looking for something embarrassing to comment on. He found it, too, though not in the way he was expecting. 

Slytherin's very own Tracy Davies was practically sitting on Potter's lap. Though she was a halfblood, she was still a Slytherin, and Draco felt a wave of anger go over himself as he watched her. 

"Not afraid you'll spoil your reputation, Potter, hanging around with a Slytherin?" he managed, before leaving quickly so he wouldn't hear Potter's response. 

Potter, stealing his girls. He wasn't going to stand for that. 

He found Crabbe and Goyle a few minutes later, pigging out on a cake some stupid person had left in a luggage rack. 

"Come on," he told them. "We have some revenge to plan." 


	3. Chapter 3

Unfortunately, the revenge didn't quite go to plan. 

The plan had been perfect. The execution of it, thanks to Crabbe and Goyle, had been far from it. 

They were to seduce Lavender Brown and Parvati Patil, two girls Draco figured meant about the same to Harry as Tracy Davies did to him. Not friends, but in his house and quite liked by him. He had spent hours coaching Crabbe and Goyle in what to say and how to act. It should have been a piece of cake, but no, they had blown it, just as he should have known they would. 

Now it was a Hogsmeade weekend and Draco was bored, something he previously would not have thought possible. He was alone at a table in the Three Broomsticks; Crabbe and Goyle were serving detention. Not that it wasn't him who had made them do it, but it was still their fault that all the Gryffindors were staring and sniggering at him. 

Sometimes he really wished he didn't have such stupid friends. 

He glared at Harry Potter, who was sitting at a table across the room with a smug grin on his face. With him were Weasley and Granger, as well as two Ravenclaw girls whose names he didn't know, though he thought he might have slept with one of them once. Potter and Weasley looked to be on the same track, judging by the way the girls were all over them. Granger looked positively left out. 

Draco sniggered as Potter and Weasley made to leave, their female companions hanging on their arms. Granger smiled at them, watching them stand up and walk to the door, leaving her alone. When they were out of sight she visibly deflated, picking up her butterbeer with a sigh. She took a sip, then stared at the mug glumly as she moved it so the liquid swirled around inside. 

Draco grinned. Perhaps there was some fun to be had here after all... 

Picking up his own drink, he sauntered over to Granger's table and sat down opposite her. 

"All alone, Granger?" he asked, raising his eyebrows in mock concern. 

"What do you want?" she growled, not looking up from her drink. 

"I thought you could do with some company, seeing how your friends abandoned you like that." He smiled at her condescendingly. 

"Malfoy, just leave me alone," she said, finally raising her head to look at him. 

He looked at her pointedly. "No." 

She glared at him. He stared back, nonplussed. 

"Fine," she said at last. "Whatever." 

Draco watched her drain her mug, obviously trying to ignore him. Drink finished, she got up and left, glancing at him for only a second. 

He followed her. 

Outside it was getting dark, and a drizzle of rain was falling. Draco hurried to catch up as Granger walked briskly up the road, heading back to Hogwarts. 

"What's the rush, Granger?" he called. "It's not like there's anyone you need to get back to." 

"I've got homework to do," she replied, increasing her pace. 

"Is that all you ever think about?" he asked, falling into step next to her. 

"No, just the most important thing." 

Draco laughed. "Wow, your life must be really exciting." 

"Oh, please. I've had enough excitement to last me a lifetime." 

"Can't have been the right kind of excitement then, if it didn't leave you wanting more." 

"Like _your_ kind of excitement does, you mean," she said, sighing. 

He shrugged. "I can't complain." 

"That's only because you haven't experienced any other kind." 

"Well, maybe you need to experience my kind." 

She stopped and looked at him. "What makes you think I haven't?" she asked, arching an eyebrow challengingly. 

"The fact that you're you." He looked at her, watching her reaction carefully. "I've never met anyone less likely to have sex." 

And as if uttering that word had broken down a barrier, an idea formed in his head. 

Ohh, now wouldn't _that_ be fun... If Potter found out, and Draco would make sure that he did... The look on his face alone would be priceless. Draco could just imagine it. 

"Is that so?" Granger was asking, studying his face. 

"Oh yes," Draco replied nonchalantly, resuming his rapid pace. "Of course," he said, turning around and taking great delight in seeing Granger running after him, "If you want to prove me wrong..." 

She snorted. "As if." 

"Fine." Draco shrugged and continued walking. "Never mind then." 

Now, where could they go and not be caught at this time in the evening? Nowhere in the school, there were still too many people about. Outside was a safer bet, though potentially uncomfortable, especially in the rain. He had almost decided on a greenhouse, preferably not one containing Professor Sprout, or anyone else for that matter, when the Quidditch goal posts came into view. 

The changing rooms. Perfect. There would definitely be no one _there_ on a Hogsmeade day, whatever time it was. 

Getting her there... well, he didn't think that would be a problem. 

When they reached the gates, he stuck his arm out in front of her, blocking her way and trapping her between himself and a large stone pillar. 

"You sure you don't want some excitement?" he asked, looking down at her. 

She stared up at him, obviously uncertain. 

Good. 

Seizing her by the shoulders, he pressed her up against the pillar and kissed her. She didn't resist, which was another good sign... he looked at her again. Then he offered her his hand. 

She took it. 

Then they disappeared in the direction of the Quidditch pitch. 


	4. Chapter 4

The rain was beating down now, splattering loudly on the thin roof. The sky was an angry grey and growing darker by the minute, letting only just enough light to see by into the changing room where Draco lay, in a pile of spare Quidditch robes, on the cold, stone floor. 

He watched, amused, as Granger ran about in a panic trying to find all her clothes so she could get back to the Great Hall in time for dinner, the dim light making her skin look ever paler than it actually was. He had obviously caught her at a weak moment; now she was berating herself out loud for what she had just allowed to happen. 

He stretched himself smugly. Oh, but he was _good_. 

"Have you seen my other sock?" Granger asked him. 

"Not since I took it off," he answered, grinning at her discomfort. 

"Malfoy, I need it." 

"Why? If someone finds it I'm sure they'll send it back to you. It has got your name on, after all." 

"And that's _exactly_ why I need to find it!" she cried, searching under one of the benches for the tenth time. "What would someone think if they found it here?" 

"Ashamed, Granger?" Draco asked, slowly standing up and starting to get dressed himself, though in a much more leisurely fashion. 

Granger opened her mouth, then hesitated. She looked at him for the first time since she'd begun her frantic search. "Of course I'm ashamed," she said finally, quickly turning away again to search behind a pile of school broomsticks. "I can't believe I let myself be so _stupid_... and with _you_, of all people! Just because Harry and Ron... there was no _reason_!" 

Draco sniggered, picking his robes off the floor. "Don't get your knickers in a twist." 

Granger froze. Then she turned around and glared at him. "You know Malfoy, I really hate you." 

Draco shrugged. "Feeling's mutual," he said, pulling on his robes. 

"But..." Granger looked slightly confused, though it seemed the realization was starting to sink in. "But then... then why?" she asked, furiously blinking back a tear that had started to form in her left eye. 

Draco grinned at her. "Why d'you think?" 

Then, stepping into his shoes and stuffing his socks into his pockets, he slung his cloak over his shoulder and left, his smug smile resting on his face until well after he'd reached the Great Hall, where he joined the other Slytherins at their table. 

Noticing his good mood, Pansy asked him why he looked so happy. 

"Oh, no reason," he answered. He wasn't going to tell people, not yet. First he wanted to see Granger squirm under the glare of _imaginary_ eyes. 

Sure enough, when she entered the Hall a few minutes later the first thing she did was to glance at him furtively. He gave her a wide, friendly looking smile. She quickly averted her eyes and hurried over to join Potter and Weasley at the Gryffindor table. 

Draco snickered. 

He had the feeling this was going to be very amusing.   
  


**Author's note:** Quick question: Would you rather have short chapters and more often or longer chapters and less often? 'Cause I could've continued this one quite a bit, but it might have taken me well into next week... Also, please keep in mind that this is from Malfoy's POV, therefore I couldn't really explore _Hermione's_ emotions much in this chapter... that'll come later :D 


	5. Chapter 5

Draco told the other Slytherins about his little "achievement" on Monday at breakfast. He chose that time so that it would be all over the school in less than a day. Poor, unsuspecting Granger, noticing the Slytherins grinning and looking at her in the morning, then at lunchtime growing more uncomfortable as the news spread, but still hadn't quite reached her, then at supper, face red with shame, knowing that the whole school knew her secret. 

How fun. 

Sadly, the news travelled faster than he had expected. Draco noticed that McGonagall was especially harsh with him during the morning Transfiguration lesson, and at lunch, rather than sitting uncomfortably and not understanding what was going on, Granger wasn't in the Great Hall at all. 

Pity. Draco had been looking forward to watching her squirm. 

What he got after Potions, however, more than made up for Granger's absence at the table. Seeing her sat all alone in a corner of the dungeon was plenty of fun, but afterwards... 

She caught him by the sleeve as he was walking up the stone steps with his fellow Slytherins. He turned to face her, a cruel grin on his face. His friends stayed where they were too, stopping to watch the spectacle. 

"Malfoy..." Granger said uncertainly. 

Draco waited expectantly for about three seconds, then prompted: "Yes? Come back for more, have you?" 

His friends laughed. 

Granger opened and closed her mouth a couple of times, then burst into tears and ran up the stairs. 

Draco and the others laughed some more. Oh, but Gryffindor pain was so funny... 

Their mirth lasted until they'd reached the common room. When they got there, however, they had to sober up. 

There was a letter waiting for them. 

Draco strode over to the table where it lay and ripped open the envelope, the others waiting anxiously even though the ones it was meant for already knew more or less what it was going to say. 

Draco unfolded the letter and read it out loud. 

"Tomorrow." 

He looked up at Pansy and Blaise to make sure they knew what it meant. They nodded at him. 

"Tomorrow?" asked Millicent. "What's tomorrow?" 

"Sorry," Draco told her. "Can't tell you." 

He grinned. 

"It's Death Eater business." 


	6. Chapter 6

The next day was quite uneventful, excluding a few pats on the back from other Slytherins and murderous glances from the Gryffindors. Draco had to go to a prefects' meeting, which was only slightly less boring than usual thanks to Granger's steadfast attempt to ignore his presence. 

Draco hated prefects' meetings. In fact he hated most things to do with being a prefect, especially being expected to sit in the prefects' compartment on the Hogwarts Express. He much preferred sitting with his friends than with a bunch of annoying Gryffindors, Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs. Pansy, on the other hand, _loved_ being a prefect, and usually stayed in the prefects' compartment even when Draco, after having arrived a good fifteen minutes after all the others anyway, had left again. It was quite annoying, really. Still, Draco had done what his father had asked of him and accepted the position of prefect. It did mean that he got to walk around the castle at night and use the prefects' bathroom, among other things, after all. 

But this meeting was pointless, as most of them were. For Merlin's sake, Draco didn't _care_ if the older students should offer to tutor the younger ones or not. He wasn't going to do it either way, but even if he _had_ to it was insignificant compared to what he, Blaise and Pansy were going to start tonight. 

He found he was becoming quite nervous, an unusual emotional state for him indeed. 

If they didn't do this right, and that meant _every little bit of it_, Lord Voldemort's plan would be ruined. The worse part was that it would be their fault, and Draco didn't dare to imagine what that would mean. Punishment, certainly. _Painful_ punishment. 

He shuddered. 

They _had_ to do it right. 

By the evening, he could tell that Pansy and Blaise were getting nervous too. He decided that enough was enough, and it was time to distract them with some interesting conversation. 

"So," he said, looking around at the other sixth-years assembled around the fire in the common room. "Who wants to come to my house at Christmas to practise the Unforgivable curses?" 

They looked at him, eyes wide. 

"Are you serious?" asked Pansy. 

"Of course I'm serious!" He grinned, then leaned forward in his armchair. "My father's been bringing me Muggles to practise on." 

They gazed at him in awe. He smiled smugly, glancing at Pansy and Blaise. They seemed suitably distracted, so he leaned back and basked in the glory that came with being a Malfoy. 

Oh, how he loved it. 

Indeed, later, twenty minutes before midnight, when he snuck back into the common room with the other two, he wasn't nearly as unsure of his ability to do the spell as he had been before. If he could master the Avada Kedavra, this should be a piece of cake. 

At exactly thirteen minutes to midnight, Draco, Pansy and Blaise stood in a row in front of the fire and threw three broken crystals into it. On Draco's signal, they then took out knives and cut themselves, dripping blood over the flames. Finally they stood back and tapped the stones above the fireplace seven times with their wands. 

"_Infirmo_," Draco whispered. 

All three let out a sigh of relief as they stepped away, grinning. 

"Well," said Pansy, "We did it." 

"And if we did it this time, we can do it again." Blaise smiled. 

"Well," said Draco, "We'd better enjoy this castle while we can. 'Cause in seventeen months..." He grinned at them. "Kaboom!" 

Laughing, they went back to bed. 


	7. Chapter 7

A few weeks later most people had forgotten about Draco and Granger. The only person who still glared at him murderously was Weasley, but he had always done so and seemed to be constantly looking for more reasons to hate Draco. Which was fine by him, since he knew from experience that he could knock Weasley unconscious with a single well placed punch. And Granger was still only saying the bare minimum to him. She hadn't even started insulting him again yet, though he was pretty certain she would soon. In fact, he eagerly awaited it, since she was the only one of his enemies who actually had _intelligent_ insults to throw at him. 

He looked at her across the hall while he ate his toast. Come to think of it, it was taking her longer to get over his shameless exploitation of her than it had the other girls. She was staring listlessly into her cereal bowl, spooning up milk and letting it trickle back in while Potter and Weasley were engaged in conversation next to her, not noticing her. 

Quite a nice accomplishment, if Draco said so himself. 

Smiling to himself, he stood up and left the Great Hall, heading outside to the Quidditch pitch. Quidditch season was coming up, and his team needed a new Beater. He hoped he could find a good one. Last year Slytherin had lost a match to Gryffindor because a Beater had accidentally sent a Bludger flying at Draco instead of Potter and had knocked him off his broom when he was just _feet_ away from the Snitch. Suffice to say, that person was no longer on the team. Since Draco had been picked as Captain last year, everyone had agreed with him that the Beater in question had to go. 

And now he needed someone new. 

He went in the changing room quickly to pick up the balls and some spare brooms for those who didn't have their own. Lifting up the brooms, he saw something that made him smile. 

It was the sock Granger had so desperately been searching for the other week. 

Draco put it in his pocket. He would have to give it back to her when he next saw her. 

Grinning, he went and stood on the pitch, leaning against his broom in an intentional bad boy pose, and watched as the hopefuls started to assemble in front of him. A fair few had turned up, which was hardly surprising, since Beater was the most sought after position on the Slytherin team. There was just something about being able to hurt someone seriously, and _intentionally_ no less, and not get so much as a detention for it... 

If it weren't for Potter, Draco might have liked to be a Beater himself. As it was... well, he couldn't have Potter thinking he was afraid to compete with him, now could he? 

"Right," Draco said, picking up a bat and turning to the potential Beaters. "What we're going to do here is simple. I'm going to fly around up there, and you are going to take turns to get on your broomsticks and try to hit me with the Bludger." He kicked the box open. "Whoever does best is on the team. If you didn't get all that, you might as well leave now, because if you want to be on my team you listen to what I say and then you do it, no questions asked." He glared at them all, glad to see that most of them were looking at him with a sort of awed respect. "Okay," he said, throwing a bat to the closest person. "Let's get started." 

He released one of the Bludgers from the box, then mounted his broom and flew up after it. The fifth-year he had given the bat to got on one of the school brooms Draco had brought outside and also flew up into the air, drawing alongside the Bludger and batting it toward Draco with all his might. 

Draco dodged it easily. He sighed. He had been afraid it would be like this. 

He let the boy attempt it a couple more times before he called for the next person to have their turn. It was a second-year girl, and she managed to get _herself_ knocked off her broom by the Bludger about ten seconds after she'd taken off. 

This was going to be tedious. 

After the third person hadn't managed to get the Bludger within ten feet of him either, he decided it was safe to let his mind wander a little. 

In between dodging the few Bludgers which might actually have hit him otherwise, Draco tried to decide what to say to Granger when he returned her sock. He wanted to get the biggest reaction possible. That certainly meant her face going as red as a tomato, and maybe a scathing insult as well. He would have liked some tears, too, but he realized that achieving that with just a sock would be exceedingly difficult, if not impossible. If it had been her bra that he had found, maybe, especially if he returned it in a public location and with a suitable sarcastic remark, but sadly that wasn't the case. 

So, what to say? 

A simple "Here's your sock" was not going to cut it. Not "Just thought I'd give this back", either. "I found something of yours, thought you might like it back" was certainly too mild... 

Draco furrowed his eyebrows, deep in thought. 

Unfortunately this prevented him from reacting quickly enough to the Bludger some fourth-year had hit at him. 

The last thing he thought before he abruptly lost consciousness was "I found your sock in my underwear drawer..." 


	8. Chapter 8

Pain. 

A dull, aching pain that seemed to cover his whole head. 

_Ouch,_ Draco thought, attempting to open his eyes without making his face hurt even more. 

He was in the hospital wing. Debating whether he should try to sit up, he listened intently for any sounds in the room. There were none. Not even Madam Pomfrey bustling about. 

With no one there, there was no point in moving. 

Staring up at the boring stone ceiling, Draco tried to remember what had happened. 

He had been flying, and then... oh yes. How embarrassing. 

How was he supposed to keep his dignity after something like _that_? He supposed he could say that the boy who had hit him was really good, and pick him for the team. The trouble was, he wasn't sure he _was_ good. He hadn't really been watching, engrossed as he was in the imaginary picture of Granger bawling her eyes out. 

Damn her, this was all her fault! 

He sighed, closing his eyes again. So, would he rather stay dignified in regards to _this_, or to the next Quidditch match? 

It was a difficult question. 

However, he soon became bored with pondering it, and in any case he couldn't make an informed decision until he had assessed the full extent of the damage by asking his friends what everyone know about what had happened. 

Idly, he wondered where Madam Pomfrey was. 

She couldn't be in bed, it was only just getting dark outside... or was it getting light? Abruptly, Draco realized he had no idea how long he had been unconscious. Maybe Madam Pomfrey _was_ in bed, and it was dawn? 

Draco had just decided to brave the pain and try to find his wand so he could find out, when he heard voices at the end of the room. One of them was certainly Madam Pomfrey's, and _all_ of them seemed quite upset about something... 

He closed his eyes and listened. 

"But she's going to be all right, isn't she? She's not going to die! She _can't_ die!" 

That was Weasley's voice, and Draco knew perfectly well that there were only two female students who could make him this hysterical. His sister... and Granger. 

"She's not going to die, Mr. Weasley, though I dare say she might have done if you had found her any later." 

Madam Pomfrey, sounding as calm as ever, though Draco doubted she really was. 

Weasley, meanwhile, had burst into tears. 

"Ron... She's going to be okay." 

Potter, sounding awkward. 

"I know, it's just-" 

Weasley paused. Draco suddenly felt a sense of foreboding. He just _knew_ Weasley was staring at him. 

"_It's all **his** fault_!" Weasley screamed, and a split second later Draco felt himself being pummelled brutally. 

_So much for feigning sleep_, he thought as he sprang out of bed and started to fight back. 

"Ron!" Potter grabbed Weasley from behind and tried to pull him off. 

"_Mr. Weasley_!" Madam Pomfrey exclaimed, also taking hold of Weasley and managing to get his hands away from the space around Draco's neck. 

Together Madam Pomfrey and Potter pulled Weasley away, and his anger seemed to weaken considerably under Madam Pomfrey's furious glare. 

"I think the two of you should go back to bed," she told them in a stern voice. "You can come and see her in the morning." Silently, they obeyed, Potter still gripping Wesley's arm tightly. 

Draco grinned. 

"You too, Mr. Malfoy," Madam Pomfrey said to him. 

He turned around and was about to argue with her, when what he saw caught him completely off guard. 

"Holy _crap_," he said, staring at Granger's unconscious form. 

"Mr. Malfoy..." Madam Pomfrey said, but he ignored her, unable to tear himself away. 

She had slit her wrists. 

She was unbelievably pale, and there was blood all over the sheets, but that wasn't the point. The point was that she, _Granger_, had tried to commit suicide. If he wasn't seeing it with his own eyes he wouldn't have thought her capable of it, but there she was, right in front of him, with bloodstains on her robes. 

Huh. 

After a few seconds Draco allowed Madam Pomfrey to guide him back to his bed, but he lay on his side so he could still see Granger's face. 

Bloody hell. 

She could've died, and from what Weasley had said it seemed Draco would have been responsible. 

He wasn't quite sure how he felt about that. 

He knew he should feel proud, after all she was a Mudblood _and_ a Gryffindor. But he had never experienced anything like this before. He had been responsible for people's death's before, of course, but they were Muggles and he had been responsible in a much more direct fashion. Also, their deaths had been the intended results of his actions. He wasn't quite sure what results he had intended with his treatment of Granger, but _this_ would never even have occurred to him. 

He had never killed anyone he knew before. 

He watched Madam Pomfrey feed Granger some kind of green potion, and a moment later she opened her eyes, looking slightly confused. 

"Wha...?" she asked, her voice scratchy. 

"You're in the hospital wing, dear," Madam Pomfrey told her. "Your friends found you." 

"Oh..." Granger looked disappointed, even a little angry. "Bastards," she said quietly. 

"Now, now, Miss Granger. I'm sure you'll feel differently in the morning." 

Granger snorted. "Yeah, right," she said, turning her head away from Madam Pomfrey, who sighed and came over to Draco's bed. 

"Mr. Malfoy," she said in a quiet voice, "I have to go and talk to the Headmaster. Would you be so kind as to keep an eye on Miss Granger while I'm gone?" 

Draco nodded, still feeling a little dumbfounded. 

Madam Pomfrey left. An uncomfortable silence ensued. 

"Watching me, are you Malfoy?" Granger asked after a few minutes. 

"Well Granger, if a shag can drive you over the edge like this I'm not sure I feel very safe around you," Draco replied. Whatever he was feeling, he wasn't about to let Granger in on it. 

"Bloody hell, Malfoy, you are so full of yourself!" She turned around to look at him, an angry expression on her face. 

"How's that?" 

"For your information, what I did tonight had _nothing_ to do with you!" 

"Oh yeah?" he asked, interested but careful not to lose his sarcastic tone of voice. 

"Yes! For goodness' sake, don't you have any idea how depressed I must have been to sleep with _you_? You really have no clue, do you?" 

"Fine." Draco sat up, wincing, then scowled when he saw that Granger had noticed his pain. "Enlighten me." 

"Fine!" Granger sat up too, glaring at him. "My friends are ignoring me, my mother is having an affair with my former _teacher_, and my grandmother has just been murdered! Notice how you didn't feature at all in that sentence?" 

For once, Draco Malfoy did not have a comeback. After a moment he looked away and stared out of the window for a while, watching the sun come up. Occasionally he glanced at Granger, who was leaning against the pillows with her arms crossed, gazing into space. 

"I found your sock," Draco said finally, forgetting all his deliberation about his choice of words. 

Granger looked at him, surprised, not finding anything to say in reply. 

Then they sat in silence again. 


	9. Chapter 9

By the time Madam Pomfrey returned, Professor McGonagall in tow, Draco was feeling decidedly hungry. However, when Madam Pomfrey put a breakfast tray in front of him he ignored it, trying instead to hear what McGonagall was saying to Granger. Sadly McGonagall noticed his attempt to eavesdrop, and pulled the curtain around Granger's bed, soundproofing it. 

Draco sighed. McGonagall always seemed to go out of her way to ruin his fun. 

He picked up his spoon and slurped at his porridge, returning his attention to the view from the window. The Ravenclaw team was training outside on the Quidditch pitch. Unfortunately they were too far away for him to see exactly what they were doing, or he might have been able to work out their playing strategy. As it was, they were just blue blobs flitting about over the ground. 

He wondered again what to do about his Beater dilemma. Was it really worth sacrificing his dignity in the hopes of finding a better person for the job? Even if his team lost every game because of that bloody Beater, Draco could still save face by calling that "brilliant shot" which had landed him here beginner's luck. Of course he could also get rid of the Beater after the first match, but if that happened too often _that_ might start making Draco look bad... but damn it, he wanted to win! 

He wished he had someone whose advice he could ask. He would have to tell his friends the same story he told everyone else, or, Slytherins that they were, they might just go blabbing. Of course, Crabbe and Goyle would just blab because they were stupid and easily manipulated. Sometimes Draco wondered how they had ever got into Slytherin, which was, after all, meant to be for the clever and ambitious. While Draco himself of course exhibited both these qualities in abundance, he had yet to discover them in Crabbe and Goyle. 

Still, he was glad to have them. If nothing else, they made a good sounding board for his nefarious schemes, of which he was sadly lacking at the moment. His plan to make Granger suffer for all eternity was ruined, since it appeared he couldn't make her suffer much more than she already was. 

He scowled to himself. He had really been looking forward to that. 

As usual, the ruination of his plan was all Potter's fault, since it was his apparent ignoring of Granger which had caused it. He would have to pay, of course, though _how_ Draco could make him pay was another question. A question he didn't have an answer to yet. Thankfully there were over sixteen months left until Lord Voldemort exacted his own revenge on Potter. Plenty of time for many, many nasty things to happen to him. 

As if summoned by Draco's thoughts, Potter and Weasley came running into the room. 

"Hermione?" Weasley cried, eyes darting around. "Hermione!" 

He was carrying a ridiculous bouquet of yellow flowers. 

Draco laughed. 

"What's so funny, Malfoy?" asked Harry, striding over to Draco's bed. 

"Only everything about you, Potter," Draco answered. 

Unfortunately Professor McGonagall pulled back the curtain and re-emerged before Draco could say anything else, but he still grinned in amusement as he watched Potter and Weasley run to Hermione's side. They obviously hadn't even realized they were at least partly responsible for her being here. As soon as the opportunity arose he would absolutely _have_ to make them aware of it... 

"Come to pay your last respects then, have you Potter?" Draco drawled, pretending to be distracted by scraping the porridge off the bottom of his bowl. "Madam Pomfrey tells me she'll be dead by tomorrow." 

All three Gryffindors sneered at Draco. "I don't see any of your friends visiting you, Malfoy," said Potter. "Oh wait! Maybe that's because you haven't _got_ an-" 

Before Potter could finish his sentence, the entire complement of Slytherin sixth-years barged through the door. 

Draco smirked at Potter smugly. "At least _my_ friends don't make me want to top myself," he told him. 

Visibly shaken by this, Potter still managed to stutter a response after a second or two. "Well, at least I don't get knocked off my broom by third years who aren't even on the Quidditch team." 

Draco smirked again before turning his attention to his friends. Making sure he was blocked from Potter's view by Goyle's large frame, he looked up at Pansy. "Does everyone know?" he asked in a low voice, his expression now deadly serious. 

Pansy nodded. "It's all over the school," she told him. "It's not often you embarrass yourself in public." 

"Damn." Draco looked down at his empty bowl, wondering what to do. 

"Er, Draco?" Blaise asked nervously. "You will be out of hospital by Wednesday, won't you? Because it'll have been thirty-three days, and we have to-" 

"Yes!" Draco hissed. "Tell the whole world, why don't you?" 

"Tell us _what_?" Millicent whined. "It's not fair, Draco, _we_ wouldn't tell anyone..." 

"Shut _up_!" Draco looked at her angrily. "For Merlin's sake, Harry Potter is _right over there_!" 

Millicent had the decency to look suitably mortified. 

"I think you'd better go," Draco told the others. "Before Millicent goes and ruins Lord Voldemort's plans with her big mouth." 

"Your friends leaving already, Malfoy?" Potter called as they started to file out. 

Draco glared at him. Then he made a decision. 

"Pansy?" he called. "Hang on a minute." 

Pansy came back to his side, looking curious. 

"Tell Bernard Vipertooth to organize another Beater-selecting session," Draco told her. "We need to find the very best person for the job." 

Pansy nodded, then ran to catch up with the others. 

Draco nodded to himself. He would find a brilliant Beater, win the Quidditch Cup, and beat Potter to a bloody pulp in the process. 

If it meant getting the better of Potter in the end, Draco decided he could handle a little humiliation. 

Madam Pomfrey came over to take his breakfast tray away, and then, to Draco's great delight, shooed Potter and Weasley out, telling them Granger needed rest. 

Draco sighed melodramatically. "Poor Granger, all alone again..." he said, purposely looking in the other direction. 

"Get stuffed, Malfoy," she told him, picking up the book that Potter had brought her. 

Draco shrugged and went back to looking out of the window. He found himself slightly jealous that Granger's friends had thought to bring her something to do, while all his had done was to almost get him killed by Lord Voldemort for making Potter aware of his plan. 

He hoped the book was really boring. Though, knowing Granger, that wouldn't keep her from reading it. 

He sighed loudly and began to whistle. 

Granger ignored him. 

Draco gave up. Granger was annoying him more than he was her, and that simply wouldn't do. 

He sighed and lay back on his bed, drumming his fingers on the side. 

"Mr. Malfoy." Madam Pomfrey came up to him and handed him a jar containing a thick purple liquid. It smelled extremely unpleasant. "Put this on your face wherever it still hurts," she told him. 

Draco made a face. Madam Pomfrey ignored him and headed back to the other end of the room, where picked up a Witch Weekly and began to read. 

Sighing, he stuck his finger in the jar and lifted it up to his face, trying not to gag as it passed his nose. Just as he was about to put it on, he noticed Granger looking at him. 

Draco grinned. He had just thought of the perfect way to stop Granger from reading that bloody book, at least for a while. 

Getting out of bed, the jar still in his hand, Draco went to stand next to Granger's bed. 

"What're you reading?" he asked, leaning forward to get a better look. Then, before Granger could answer, he "accidentally" spilled the entire contents of the jar on her precious book. 

"Malfoy!" she shouted angrily. 

Draco smiled. "Oops," he said, raising his eyebrows and putting on an innocent expression. 

He got back into bed and watched smugly as Granger tried in vain to dry her book and rid it of the stench. He barely noticed the glare Madam Pomfrey gave him as she went over to tell Granger she would have to let the book dry in front of the fire before a de-odouring spell would work on it, something Draco was delighted to hear 

When Madam Pomfrey finally left Granger's bedside after having to change the sheets, Granger glared at Draco. 

He looked away, pretending not to notice. 

"Why did you do that?" she asked in a calm, cold voice. 

Draco shrugged. 

"For that matter, why the _hell_ did you tell Harry and Ron what I told you _in confidence_?!" 

He turned to look at her. "First of all, Granger, you never told me not to tell anyone. Second of all, even if you had, you should know me well enough to know that you should _never_ trust me. I'm above such things. And third..." He grinned. "I really wanted to see the expression on Potter's face." 

"He didn't believe you." Granger was still glaring at him. "Not after I'd convinced him that you'd just said it because you were an evil git, which is true anyway." 

"Oh Granger, I'm so _hurt_!" Draco said, then stroked his chin for a second, looking thoughtful. "Oh wait!" He laughed. "No I'm _not_!" 

"Oh _calm down_, you two!" Madam Pomfrey called from her armchair at the other end of the room. She looked at them angrily for a moment before standing up and opening one of the many huge cupboards in the room. She took out a large wooden box, wheeled a table in-between Draco's bed and Granger's, and dumped the box on it. "Play a game, why don't you?" she said to them in a very annoyed voice. "And for goodness' sake stop bickering!" 

She went back to her chair in a huff. 

Draco looked back to Granger, who continued to glare at him even as she opened the box and started to examine its contents. 

"Exploding Snap?" she asked, her voice carefully neutral. 

Draco snorted. "Please. I haven't played that since before Hogwarts." Technically that was a lie, but it got his point across. 

"Fine." She glared at him some more, which was getting rather tiring, Draco thought. "Is there anything you _do_ play?" she asked. 

"Chess," Draco responded. He was quite good at chess, and it would be fun to beat Granger. 

Granger took a chess board and pieces out of the box in silence. She dumped the white pieces in front of him and started making the black ones arrange themselves on her side of the board. 

"Hey," Draco protested, "I'm black! I'm _always_ black." 

"Tough." Granger folded her arms. 

Draco sighed and looked at his pieces. One of his bishops was asleep, and got quite upset when Draco poked it to make it wake up. 

"Fine," Draco said, pushing his pieces onto the board, then moving his knight forward. 

Granger smirked. 

Draco sneered. 

They were still playing, and still making the same expressions, by the time it started to get dark. 

Draco was extremely frustrated. Not only had he not beaten Granger, he was pretty sure he wasn't going to. For the past hour he had had only his King and a Rook left, and she the King and a Knight, and what that meant was a stalemate. 

Of course, he wasn't going to tell that to Granger. 

"Time for bed!" Madam Pomfrey said suddenly, coming over and taking hold of the table to wheel it back to its place in the corner. 

"No!" Draco and Granger shouted simultaneously, both grabbing hold of the table as well. 

"Now now," Madam Pomfrey said, pulling the table away from them forcefully. She looked at the board. "It's a stalemate anyway." 

"No it's not!" Granger cried. 

"Yeah," said Draco, "I was just about to beat her!" 

Madam Pomfrey looked at them both incredulously, but left the board on the table instead of clearing it back into the box. She made them both eat supper and clean their teeth, then turned out the light. 

"Now behave yourselves and go to sleep," she told them, going into the small room at the other side of the wing, where she slept. 

Draco sighed and tried to get comfortable. His head still hurt and he could hear Granger breathing. It was annoying, to say the least. 

He lay there for quite some time before he realized he wasn't going to get to sleep. He carefully got out of bed and crept over to the table where the chess board was. If he could move his pieces to _just_ the right place... 

"Ow! That was my _foot_, you moron!" came a familiar female voice from somewhere in the darkness. 

"Granger? What are you doing?" 

"Nothing! What are _you_ doing?" 

"Nothing." 

"You were trying to cheat, weren't you!" 

"So were you!" 

"I was not!" she said defensively. 

"Perfect Granger, going to cheat just so you could beat me." 

A pause, then an exasperated sigh. "I'm going back to bed." 

"Yeah, you do that. At least you're _slightly_ less annoying when you're asleep." 

Draco managed to get back to his bed without colliding with Granger again. He quickly found his dressing gown and his wand, then made his way towards the door. 

"_Lumos_," he whispered. 

"Where are you _going_?!" Granger hissed, sitting up in bed. 

"To find something more interesting to do," he replied, not looking back. 

"Wait!" Granger grabbed her own dressing gown and came running to his side. "You can't go wandering around the castle in the middle of the night! What if you get caught?" 

"Why should you care? Leave me alone!" 

"No. I don't want to have to explain where you've gone when Madam Pomfrey gets back." 

"Just say you were asleep!" 

"She won't believe me! I'm a terrible liar." 

Draco sighed in exasperation. She was really getting on his nerves. 

"Oh, sod this," he said finally, swooping out of the room at a rapid pace. 

Granger hurried after him, her bare feet slapping loudly against the marble floor. Draco winced. They were _sure_ to get caught at this rate. 

He didn't understand why she wanted to come anyway. She was just going to get in the way, asking stupid questions, talking when he wanted quiet, and generally being the most annoying creature on the planet. 

Oh, how he _hated_ her! He could understand why Potter and Weasley didn't want to be around her anymore. Although he _didn't_ understand why they had wanted to be friends with her in the first place. She was an annoying know-it-all, and a Mudblood at that. And he _certainly_ didn't understand why she didn't want Potter and Weasley to know why she had slashed her wrists. If they knew they would stop ignoring her, right? Wouldn't that be better for her? 

Bloody Gryffindors. They always confused him. He _understood_ his fellow Slytherins. Slytherins were simple. Slytherins did what was best for themselves. Gryffindors... They had all that bloody bravery and honour and stuff. If brave meant having no fear, then Draco was braver than all the Gryffindors put together. He didn't get afraid. He felt angry, or annoyed, but never afraid. But somehow he didn't think the Gryffindors thought bravery meant quite the same thing as he did. And as for honour...! As far as he could see, it only made you do things you didn't want to, and stopped you from getting what you really wanted. He quite honestly couldn't see the point. 

Draco shook his head and continued walking. And he would have continued walking right into Filch, if Granger hadn't grabbed his arm. 

"Well, well, well..." Filch grinned. "And what are you two doing out of bed at this late hour?" 

Draco smiled. "Going to Potions. Mustn't be late, Professor Snape will be upset. It's almost nine! We'll have to miss lunch." 

He turned to grin maniacally at Granger, hoping she would understand what he meant by this nonsense. 

"Um, yes," she said nervously. "Er... Malfoy got hit on the head. He's delirious. I just caught up with him. I'll take him back to the hospital wing now." She tugged at Draco's sleeve. 

Draco smiled at Filch again. 

Filch seemed to buy it. "_You'd better_ get 'im back to the hospital wing," he told Granger, grinning again as he looked at Draco. "Nasty things, bludgers..." 

With that, he walked off in the opposite direction. 

"Hmm," Draco told Granger when Filch was out of earshot. "Maybe you're not _quite_ as hopeless as I thought you were. Though you _are_ a terrible liar." 

"Thank you, Malfoy," she said sarcastically. "Coming from you that's a real compliment." 

Draco grinned as he started walking again. "Don't worry Granger, I would never pay you a compliment." 

Not replying, Granger followed him. 

They walked through the deserted corridors until they reached the small stone staircase leading to the tallest tower. Draco climbed it quickly, not bothering to check if Granger was keeping up. Then he was there, right at the top of the castle. He walked over to the wall and leaned over, looking first down at the castle and the grounds and then up at the stars in the clear night sky. 

He smiled. 

He heard Granger step outside, slightly out of breath. She came to stand next to him. 

"What are we doing here?" she asked. 

Draco shrugged. "I like being up here. I like the way it makes everything look so small." He looked down at the small cluster of lights that was Hogsmeade. "It makes me feel powerful." He paused thoughtfully. "Not that I'm _not_ powerful, of course." 

Granger laughed. "I should have known your greatest wish was to be all-powerful." 

"Why?" Draco asked, turning to look at her. "What's yours?" 

Maybe this could help him understand the Gryffindors a little better. _Know your enemy_, that was what his father always said. 

Granger was looking up at the stars. "To be happy," she said. 

Oh-kay, so maybe this would just confuse him even _more_... 

"If I was all-powerful I _would_ be happy," he told her. 

"I wouldn't." 

Draco smirked. "Well, you're never going to be all-powerful anyway, so I wouldn't worry about it." 

"And you are?" Granger asked, snorting. 

He grinned. "Maybe." He looked at the stars and pointed to a particularly bright pattern. "You see that? That means great power." 

She laughed. "Malfoy, I _know_ you don't take Divination." 

"So what? Neither do you." 

"True... _But_," she said, "I can still see a great deal of trouble in our future if we don't get back to the hospital wing before Madam Pomfrey comes to check on us." 

Draco sighed. He had _known_ she was too goody-two-shoes to be any real fun. "Since when do I take orders from you?" 

"Since I'm going to put away the chess things?" she said, taking a few steps towards the door before turning to look at him. "Unless you want a rematch, of course." 

Draco turned around and idly leaned against the wall. "Not afraid I'll beat you this time, Granger?" 

"I'm not afraid to find out." She fixed him with a challenging look. "Are you?" 

Draco pondered it for a minute, then decided that refusing the challenge might make her think he was a coward, which was certainly not an impression he wanted her to have. 

He stood up straight. "Not at all," he told her. And he strode confidently down the staircase before she could say another word. 


	10. Chapter 10

Granger was asleep. 

Draco had been making a particularly difficult strategic decision, and she had gone and fallen asleep. 

Typical. 

And he had so wanted to see how she would react to his wonderfully innovative move. 

Oh well... 

He sighed and lay back on his bed. It was starting to get light again, which meant that Madam Pomfrey would be back soon. Draco wondered if she would try to make him put that horrible purple stuff on his face again. He _really_ didn't want to. 

"Good morning!" Madam Pomfrey said a few minutes later as she came bustling into the room. 

Hoping for the best - which meant no foul-smelling purple stuff - Draco mumbled a good morning and sat up to let Madam Pomfrey examine him. 

"Well, I think you're well enough to leave now, Mr. Malfoy," she told him after a minute. 

Draco blinked. He hadn't been expecting that. 

"Oh," he said. 

"Your robes are over there," said Madam Pomfrey, starting to open all the curtains on the many windows. "You may want to hurry, I told Professor McGonagall you would be able to attend your Transfiguration lesson." 

"_Oh_," Draco said again , this time in a slightly less than friendly tone. Trust McGonagall to want him back at school the moment he got out of hospital. 

He sighed and picked up his robes, glancing wistfully at the unfinished chess game before pulling the curtain around his bed and getting changed. 

When Draco left the hospital wing Granger was still asleep. As he descended the stone steps to the empty Slytherin common room and then to his dormitory, he wondered if they'd ever get to finish the game, so he could prove once and for all that he _was_ better than her. 

Ah well. If not at chess, he was sure he would beat her at something else. 

He'd have a longer life span, for one thing. 

This thought cheered him up considerably, much more than the burnt cake he took out of the parcel he found on his bed. Father must have needed the House Elves for something; they usually sent him better stuff than this. The Quidditch tickets almost made up for it, though; Falmouth Falcons vs. Chudley Cannons, the last day of the Christmas holidays. The Cannons were by far the weakest team in the League, and the Falcons, at least as far as Draco was concerned, the best and strongest. The match would be bloody, it always was where the Falcons were concerned. 

Which was precisely why Draco liked them so much. 

Also contained in the parcel was a note from his father. 

_Don't forget._

Draco snorted. As if he would forget something as important as the spell. 

He folded and pocketed the note, then picked up his copy of "Quidditch Through the Ages" and headed back to the common room. It was still empty. This suited Draco fine; he got the best armchair - although he usually did anyway - and he didn't yet have to suffer Pansy embarrassing him by hugging him. She always hugged him when he came back from the hospital wing. He had given up telling her not to, even though hugging was a decidedly un-Malfoy thing to do. He had never seen his father hug or be hugged by anyone, and Draco always tried to do things the way his father would. That way his father wouldn't be disappointed in him for being un-Malfoy-like. On the pretty rare occasions when Father was disappointed he did things that were... painful. Especially since Lord Voldemort had returned. 

But that was life. Draco's life, anyway. 

And apart from that, he quite liked it. 

As he had predicted, Pansy hugged him the moment she saw him. He practically had to prise her off his arm so he could ascend to the Great Hall with some dignity. He noted that Granger wasn't there - she was probably still _asleep_, apart from being confined to the hospital wing - and Potter and Weasley were glaring at him from across the room. Draco smirked back as he sat down, eagerly awaiting the breakfast that was sure to be much better than hospital wing porridge. 

"So what happened to Granger?" Pansy asked, eyes lighting up in anticipation of the horrible details. 

Draco grinned. "She only went and tried to top herself!" 

At that, the whole group erupted in laughter and didn't stop for at least a minute, only interrupted by Pansy's "A pity she didn't succeed!" 

"But why did she do it?" Blaise wondered when they had calmed down a little. "She's got everything! Teacher's pet, friends with famous Potter..." 

"And don't forget she got to shag Draco!" said Pansy, sounding a bit jealous. 

"Stupid Gryffindors," said Millicent. 

"Well," Draco said, grinning, "She obviously realized that a quick fumble with me was the best thing that would ever happen to her, so there was really no point in staying alive, right?" 

They laughed again. 

_The lie was funnier than the truth, right?_ Draco thought. 

Well, yes, of course it was. Who wanted to know about Granger's grandmother, anyway? She had undoubtedly been a Muggle and therefore not remotely interesting to Draco or any of his friends. 

And as for her mother and her teacher...! Draco shuddered at the thought of his own mother and one of _his_ teachers. It gave him a disturbing mental image. Not that it would ever happen, of course, Father would _kill_ her if she ever did anything like that. Draco was thankful for that small mercy. 

However, when Transfiguration started a short while later Draco wished McGonagall were having an affair with Father. Or at least had even a _smidgen_ of respect for him! That way she might not be going on about his non-existent essay right now... 

"I was in hospital, Professor!" he told her. 

"That is no excuse, Mr. Malfoy. You were well enough to receive visitors and to play chess, I gather. A short essay should have been well within your power." 

"But-" 

"You will hand in the essay tomorrow, and it will encompass three rolls of parchment instead of the one roll it would have been otherwise." 

Draco sighed, exasperated. He had to pick a Beater tonight! Slytherin's first match wasn't until after Christmas, but if Draco wanted them to have a chance he needed to start training, not be stuck writing essays! 

It was all very frustrating. 

Fortunately the Beater selecting went better than it had last time. 

Most of the hopefuls were still hopeless, and Draco honestly thought one of them had died when she fell off her broom, but he finally managed to find a fourth-year named Joshua Fizzlewinch who seemed reasonably competent. Though he did have a bloody stupid name. 

However, by the time Draco got back to the common room it was already 10 o'clock and he hadn't even _started_ on the bloody essay yet. 

He trudged through the stone corridors to his dormitory, damp broom in hand, and had just sat on his bed to change his shoes when what looked like one of the school owls flew through the half open window and landed in front of him. Curious, Draco knelt down and untied the note from the owl's leg. 

It was from Granger. 

_Malfoy,___

_do you want to come up and finish our chess game tomorrow?_   
_I've done all my homework and I'm terribly bored.___

_Hermione___

_P.S. If you tell anyone I sent you this note I'll put you under Imperio and make you beg Dumbledore to let you transfer into Hufflepuff___

Draco grinned. 

Well, well, well... _That_ certainly wasn't something he would have expected from a mortal enemy. 

Thinking about Granger being bored to tears without him made Draco feel a lot better as he returned to the common room and began to work on his essay. If only McGonagall knew that her star pupil was practically begging to spend time with him! The look on her face would be priceless. 

Still, the interruption by Pansy and Blaise in order to do the spell was welcome. The ritual was the same as before: crystal, blood, _infirmo_. It had to be repeated every thirty-three days, seventeen times in all. At certain times other things would be required; ingredients, a sacrifice, a chant or two, but right now the spell wasn't advanced enough for those things. Then, when the spell was finished, Lord Voldemort would come and blow the castle to smithereens, destroying the "good" side's main stronghold and probably killing a bunch of their strongest fighters in the process. 

Draco couldn't wait. He had never seen a really big explosion before, and this one promised to be spectacular. 

Draco returned to his essay and wrote for another hour before he felt he had a result that would seem perfect even to McGonagall, and would therefore wash that unnerving smile off her face. 

Even Granger wouldn't have done much better, he thought. 

And speaking of Granger... 

Draco took a spare piece of parchment and scribbled two words on it before tying it to the leg of Mars, his owl. 

_Granger,___

_yes.___

_D.M._


	11. Chapter 11

"It's my grandmother's birthday tomorrow." 

Draco looked up, startled. He and Granger had been sitting in silence in a corner of the prefects' meeting room for at least five minutes, both staring at the chessboard. Draco found himself quite annoyed that she wasn't concentrating on her next move, as he had presumed. 

"She would've been seventy-two," Granger continued, still looking at the board. 

Draco sighed and shifted his legs to prevent his ankle from going to sleep. It had been over a month since Granger's grandmother had died, surely she should have got over it by now? 

Still, he now knew from experience that when she started obsessing over something the only thing you could do was to play along until she stopped. 

Well, either that or say something nasty so she would insult him for a few minutes and then get back to the game because she had forgotten what she'd been talking about. 

"How was she killed, again?" he asked, striking a good balance between the two options, he thought. Even if it didn't result in the insults as he intended, at least the answer would be interesting. Draco was interested in death. Well, ways of dying, anyway. 

As predicted, Granger looked up incredulously. "You are the most insensitive person I know," she told him. 

Draco shrugged. 

Granger glared at him before returning her attention to the board. Draco sat up straight. Hopefully she had finally decided to make her move. 

But no. To his disappointment she looked up again. 

"I think it was a wizard, if you must know. One of your Death Eater friends, no doubt." 

Draco had to admit that this piqued his interest a tiny bit. "Really? What makes you say that?" 

"The fact that there were no marks on her body and no ascertainable cause of death. And two girls from her block of flats went missing on the same day. I know what kind of things you Death Eaters like to do to pretty Muggle girls." 

Draco shook his head. "What makes you think I'm a Death Eater anyway?" 

Granger scoffed. "Oh, please. How could you not be?" She finally made her move, making her Queen beat up Draco's remaining Knight in a most brutal fashion. "Check," she said innocently. 

Scowling, Draco scanned the board. Things were not looking good for his faithful chess pieces. Maybe if he put the Rook between the Queen and his King... it would be protected by that Pawn... 

Too late, he realized that that was exactly what Granger wanted him to do. With the Rook out of the way, she was free to move her Bishop, and... 

"Checkmate," she announced smugly. 

Draco sighed and began gathering up his pieces. It was meant to be him thrashing her at chess, not the other way around! Granted, she wasn't _exactly _thrashing him, in fact they had both won a pretty much equal amount of games since that first one, the whole point of which had been to show her how much better he was than her. He _still_ hadn't done that. The thing was, if Draco stopped playing with her now, she would think he was a coward. No, he had to win so many games in a row that _she_ gave up. Unfortunately this now looked far less likely than he had first thought... 

"Well Granger, hope you have a terrible Christmas," he told her as he got up. 

"You too, Malfoy." She smiled sweetly. "I really mean that." 

Draco rolled his eyes before he left the room and began hurrying down the stairs to the common room. 

"Draco, where have you been?" Pansy asked as soon as he entered. 

"None of your business," he said, quickly picking up the books he had left on the table, then sweeping out of the room again and heading for his room. He still had some packing to do before the Hogwarts Express left early the next morning, and it was already almost midnight. 

He pulled his trunk out from under his bed and kicked it open. Turning to the pile of books on his chest of drawers, he removed the ones he would need over the holidays and stacked them carefully in the trunk, followed by his neatly folded clothes and, finally, the Quidditch tickets. 

Satisfied, Draco locked the trunk, changed into his black silk pyjamas and got into bed. 

Tomorrow would be the start of a very interesting Christmas holiday. 

The other Slytherins were obviously all very excited the next morning, especially Millicent, who had never been to Malfoy Manor before. She probably would have badgered Draco with questions about his home and his parents for the whole trip if he hadn't told her to shut up after about five minutes. Even Pansy for once didn't spend most of the journey in the prefects' carriage, instead sitting next to him with a big grin on her face the whole time. 

Personally he thought their behaviour was rather childish. 

He was quite relieved when they arrived at Platform 9 3/4 to find one of his father's house-elves waiting for them with a Portkey. In no time at all they were standing in the courtyard outside the Manor, squinting in the twilight to make out Draco's mother coming towards them wearing her best smile. 

"Draco," she said, putting a hand on his shoulder for a second. 

"Mother." He nodded tersely. 

His mother turned to the others. "Welcome to Malfoy Manor," she told them. "Please come inside." 

They followed her through the thick oak doors into the large hallway, where she gestured towards the staircase on the right and said: "The house-elf will take your luggage and show you to your rooms. Dinner will be served at eight. If you need something to wear just ask him." 

They followed the elf up the stairs, Draco leaving them on the first floor while they continued up to the second, where the guest bedrooms were. He walked along the corridor, past the master bedroom and on to his own room at the end of it. Taking off his cloak and hanging it up in its proper place, he then allowed himself to sink onto his huge four poster bed and just lie there for a minute. 

Draco's bedroom was, as were the great majority of the rooms in Malfoy Manor, richly furnished with the most expensive things money - and sometimes other things - could buy. Most of these things were black or made of dark brown wood. The floor was parquet, the walls were bare apart from a mounted sword and a framed photograph of Draco and his parents. At one point Draco had wanted to put up Quidditch posters, but his mother had deemed them "too tacky". He had been allowed to have the sword instead. It was a 17th century English Backsword, and it served its purpose well. That purpose being to look bloody impressive on Draco's wall, of course. 

The room had no windows, but a large pair of glass doors made up for that. They had big black curtains to go with them and led onto a small private balcony with a view of the grounds. 

But the best thing about Draco's room, at least at a time like this, was definitely the en-suite bathroom. 

It was only seven, as Draco saw when he glanced at the clock. More than enough time to have a long, relaxing, and above all _solitary_ bath. 

Taking his boots off before he stood up again, Draco walked over to the wardrobe and found his slippers and dressing gown. He went into the bathroom and, after locking the door behind him, put his things on a chair and waited for the bath to be ready. The locking of the door was not because he didn't want people to see him naked, his body was pretty bloody perfect after all, but because he wanted to be alone. Draco liked being alone, away from, well, everything he _wanted_ to be away from. Being alone was the only way he could feel completely relaxed. 

The bath didn't take long to be ready, since it had automatically started running itself when Draco had entered the room. Throwing his clothes in the washing basket by the toilet, where they disappeared from a few moments later, Draco got into the bath and leaned back. 

It was perfect, as he had known it would be. None of the fancy scents or colours his mother and apparently his fellow prefects liked, and just hot enough for it to hurt the tiniest bit. 

He sighed and closed his eyes. 

For the first time in weeks he allowed himself to think of nothing. Nothing but the soothing water, and the blissful darkness, and the absolute silence. To just enjoy the sensation of being in a bath. The hot water, the steam rising from it, the comfortable effect of the cushioning charm that allowed him to lie back so complacently... 

He lay there for quite some time, just enjoying the little bubble of nothingness he had created. Then slowly, thoughts began to seep back into his mind. 

The first was of a chessboard. There were only a few pieces left. Draco watched Granger move a pawn forward to protect her queen. He grinned and took the pawn with his knight, even though it was not strategically wise. He did it purely for the pleasure of seeing the little figure have its head lopped off. Granger looked shocked, horrified even, bravely trying to hide her fear from him put failing miserably. 

Draco opened his eyes. He wished he could really see that look on her face. Even the thought of it made him feel... actually he wasn't quite sure how it made him feel. Something intense, certainly. Something exciting, perhaps? 

That expression was probably the one Granger would have on her face when she died, Draco thought. He wondered vaguely when that would be. He hoped he would be there, to see if he was right. He could see it now, every detail of her face as it was moulded into that complicated expression... 

Abruptly, Draco wondered why he knew Granger's face that well. He didn't know _her_ that well. He wouldn't want to, either. Arrogant Gryffindor Granger, always winning when she should be losing, and just _not_ taking it badly enough when Draco did beat her. He supposed that was why he knew her face so well. He was always watching it for her reactions. Her ever disappointing reactions... 

He sighed and sat up. The only things Granger ever even occasionally reacted to, he thought as he stepped out of the bath and began to dry himself off, were his insults, his cheapest form of entertainment. Apart from that time when she had reacted to his manly charms, of course. He grinned, looking out of the window, which was enchanted so that he could see out, but if anyone looked at it from the outside it would be camoflaged and they wouldn't even notice it. 

Granger _had_ been a pretty good lay. 

Maybe when he had finally thrashed her at chess he should try that again... 

But that meant that first he had to thrash her. 

He pulled his black satin dressing gown on and went back to his bedroom. A house-elf had brought his trunk up. Draco opened it, took out a quill and a piece of parchment and put them on his desk. He removed his most expensive chess set from his cupboard, carefully placed it next to the parchment, and moved a piece. When he felt satisfied that it was a good opening move, he took his quill and wrote "e4", his move in algebraic notation. Granger would be brainy enough to figure out that it meant he had moved his Pawn to square e4. Then he called his owl, tied the parchment to his leg and sent it to her. 

Satisfied that he had just got a step closer to beating her once and for all, and therefore to some good sex, Draco changed into his evening clothes and headed downstairs to dinner. 

The others were standing around in the hall looking nervous. They looked up at him as he descended, Pansy obviously admiring his outfit. Sadly he couldn't do the same for hers. She was wearing a disgustingly bright pink dress with far too many frills. His mother obviously thought so too, because the moment she entered the hall and surveyed her guests a slight sneer appeared on her face. Draco grinned, following her and the others into the dining room. Thankfully he had inherited his parents' good taste. 

His father was already in the room when they entered, standing at the head of the table with his usual stern expression. He bade them all sit down before sitting down himself, then spent what must have seemed, to them, an excruciatingly long time scrutinizing Draco's fellow Slytherins. Finally he relaxed his posture just a little. 

"Welcome," he told them. He clapped his hands and the food appeared on the table. "I trust everything is going well with the spell?" he asked Draco pointedly while picking up his fork. 

"Yes sir," Draco answered. He held his father's gaze, determined to show the others that he wasn't afraid, like they were, just respectful. "It's all going according to plan." 

"Excellent." Draco's father then returned his gaze to the others. "Lord Voldemort has ordered me to instruct you in the Unforgivable curses," he said. "I expect you all to give me all your energy and attention and not to let yourselves fall prey to emotions like guilt or sympathy. Muggles are to us as apes are to them: simply inferior. Do you understand?" 

"Yes sir," they answered nervously. They were obviously terrified of him. Blaise was looking particularly green. 

Draco had to admit that he felt pretty bloody proud to have a father who could incite a reaction like that. He couldn't wait to see how the others reacted when they saw his father in action tomorrow. 

The rest of the meal passed without much conversation. Draco's classmates were too afraid to say anything and none of the Malfoys felt the need. Each of them was enjoying the discomfort of the others too much. 

Draco's mother left almost as soon as she had finished eating, suggesting that he show his friends the drawing room. His father also made his excuses, and soon the Slytherin sixth-years were left alone. They sat in silence for a few minutes, watching Crabbe and Goyle pig out on everyone else's leftovers. When they were done they looked up at Draco expectantly. 

"Come on then," he sighed. "I'll show you the drawing room." 

He got up and led the way into the next room, where he promptly sat down again and looked at the others expectantly. 

"It's... very nice, Draco," Millicent said after a while. 

"It's boring," Draco answered. "It's all books and sofas and musical instruments. Do you want to see something that's actually interesting now?" 

They all nodded excitedly. Draco smiled. 

"Come on then." 

He stood up and headed back out to the hall, then down the stone steps and through a few long passageways. He stopped in front of what looked like a solid wall and waited for the others to catch up. Then he turned back to it and touched the bricks in a complicated manner. The wall slid back and Draco grinned at his friends. 

"Welcome to the dungeons," he told them before sweeping through the newly appeared opening. 

He had to look through the grates of several doors before he found a cell that was occupied. He unlocked the door and the others huddled in to the small dark room, talking in excited whispers. 

Chained to the wall was a girl, 12 or 13 years old. Her hair was brown and matted, her clothes and skin dirty, and she didn't even look up until Draco pulled out his wand. When she saw that she let out a small whimper. Draco laughed, and the other Slytherins took his cue. 

He raised his wand. "Crucio," he said calmly. 

The girl screamed in agony. The other Slytherins looked at Draco in awe. 

"Wow," said Blaise. 

Draco shrugged. "It's not that hard." It was hard, of course, it had taken him ages to get it right, but he wasn't about to tell them that. 

The lie paid off; all the others looked suitably impressed. 

Draco nodded to himself, then made to leave, as if he had seen and done things like this so many times that it no longer held a thrill for him. 

"I'm going to bed," he told them. "Do anything you like with her, just don't kill her. Make sure to close all the doors on your way out." 

With that he left, the sounds of Goyle sniggering as Crabbe poked the girl fading into the background. He smiled when he thought of them trying to figure out how to close the hidden door. No doubt they would panic, and then feel extremely stupid when they realized how simple it actually was. 

Maybe he should sneak back down to watch... but no, he couldn't be bothered. 

As he began to ascend the staircase to the first floor, he heard footsteps. Someone could obviously be bothered to find _him_. 

He turned around and saw that it was Pansy. He shrugged and resumed his leisurely pace up the stairs, leaving her to race after him. 

"Draco!" she said when she had finally caught up with him. "You haven't shown me your room yet." 

"Pansy, you've seen my room before," he told her, making his way along the corridor and opening his door. He could see where this was headed. 

"I know..." she said, following him closely. "But you said you were going to bed, so I thought..." 

"Thought what?" 

He had a feeling he knew very well what. 

"Well..." Pansy put her arms around his neck. "That we could, you know..." She leaned in to kiss him. 

He pushed her away. "Pansy, how many times do I have to tell you? No!" 

She pouted. "Come on, Drakey, just this once..." 

"In my father's house? Are you _insane_?" Draco did not do things his father had forbidden him to do, especially not right under his nose. 

"But-" 

"Just go to bed, Pansy," Draco said, exasperated. "A floor up, if you please." 

Still pouting, Pansy made her way to the door. "I'll get you one of these days, you know," she promised as she left. 

"One day, Pansy, one fine day," he answered, blowing her a kiss with overemphasis. 

She grinned and closed the door behind her. 

The moment she had gone, Draco sighed and allowed himself to fall back onto his bed. It was hard, oh so hard... and Pansy was just so bloody good-looking. Add to that the fact that he hadn't had a good shag since Granger, well, he was one frustrated young man. 

He should probably do something to relieve that frustration, or it might distract him tomorrow. 

Quickly having made the decision, Draco grabbed his wand and cloak and went to open the doors to the balcony, where his old Nimbus 2001 was waiting for him. 

He was about to mount it and head off to the nearest Muggle town in search of a party and a pretty girl when he heard a screeching sound. A moment later Mars landed on Draco's shoulder, a piece of parchment attached to his leg. 

He grinned as he walked over to Mars' cage and untied his letter before giving him food and drink. It was from Granger. 

_Malfoy,_

_Bored already, are you?_

_Good, I could do with some distraction. My parents are being overly nice around me, it's so unnatural it's suffocating. I can't escape to Ron's until next week and I've already finished half of my homework. Let's make it a long, rigorous game which I win, shall we?_

_e5._

_Hermione_

Draco put the letter down and strode over to his desk to move the piece. When his white Pawn on f2 saw this, it jumped up and down excitedly. 

"Ooh, ooh!" it cried. "King's Gambit!" 

"No," said the Bishop behind it. "Spanish Opening!" 

"King's Gambit!" cried the Pawn again, turning around to look at the Bishop. 

Draco furrowed his brow in thought, mentally blocking out the argument that ensued. Should he take the Pawn's advice and go for the King's Gambit, or should he try something more original, since the Spanish Opening wasn't nearly as aggressive as Draco liked to play. 

The King's Gambit _was_ his favourite opening... 

Making a quick decision, he moved the Pawn forward to f4, amidst booing from the Bishop and one of the Knights and excited cries from the Pawn. Draco's pieces liked to sacrifice themselves for him, as was required of the Pawn with the King's Gambit. They liked everything Draco told them to like. Sometimes things like that annoyed him. 

But not today. 

He took a new piece of parchment from a desk drawer, this time a posh one with the Malfoy coat of arms depicted at the top, and wrote his reply. 

_Granger,_

_I'm not bored at all, actually. I'd feel sorry for you, cooped up with your Muggle parents all week, but I just can't bring myself to care enough. Never mind, eh?_

_f4._

_Draco Malfoy._

He tied the parchment to Mars' leg, and, despite the owl's obvious annoyance, sent him off again into the night. 

Then he changed for bed, imagining Granger receiving the letter, went to sleep thinking about Granger, and dreamed strange dreams about Granger. 

He woke up late the next morning. 

Cursing when he saw the time, he leapt up, threw his clothes on and, having missed breakfast, had to keep himself from running down the stairs to the dungeons in an undignified manner which would have horrified his mother had she seen him. Instead, he took the time to comb his hair and descended at as normal a pace as he dared. 

Draco heard his father's voice echoing down the hallway the moment he stepped through the concealed door. He walked quickly but quietly along it until he reached the biggest room, the one his father's voice was emanating from. Slicking back his hair with his hand, he took a deep breath and entered. 

They all turned to look at him when he came in. He stood just inside, waiting for his father to say something. 

"Draco," Lucius Malfoy said finally, nodding at his son. 

"Father," Draco replied, holding his gaze. 

They stared at each other for a few moments before Draco's father spoke again. 

"I have just been explaining the mental discipline which is required for the Imperius Curse," he said. "Would you care to demonstrate the effect when this discipline is applied?" 

"Certainly, Father." Draco drew his wand and took a few steps closer to the wall. He surveyed his possible victims, one of whom was the girl he had left the others with last night, all young women in their teens or twenties. This was to be expected; one of the many traits Draco shared with his father was his preference for young, female Muggles to "play" with. 

Mindful that he shouldn't hesitate for too long, Draco stepped in front of the nearest of these women, a red-haired, blue-eyed girl of maybe 17 or 18, and raised his wand. 

"_Imperio_," he said, loudly and clearly. 

The change in her expression of resignation was not great, but still visible to the trained eye. 

"Look happy," was the first thing Draco told her to do, and immediately she smiled warmly, displaying a row of white teeth. 

Taking another step forward, so the there were mere inches between their faces, he smiled back coldly before telling her: "Kiss me." 

She did so without the slightest hesitation. 

He broke the kiss after a second or two, shooting a grin at the others, who were watching intently. 

"Now," he commanded, looking at the others again, "give me a blowjob." 

They watched, transfixed, as the girl got to her knees and reached out her hands in the direction of Draco's waist. 

"Stop," he said before she could touch him, and broke the spell. The girl blinked, confused, then a wave of disgust passed over her features before she began to cry. 

Draco looked back to his father to see if he had maybe gone to far, but he gauged from his expression that his demonstration had served its purpose, if perhaps not quite in the way his father would have liked. 

They spent the rest of the morning practising the curse, and after lunch Draco's father got his mother to come down and show them the Cruciatus curse. The other thing he got her to do was stay with the others while he asked Draco to step outside with him. 

Lucius Malfoy closed the door to the cell carefully behind them before fixing his cold gaze on Draco. 

"What happened this morning?" he asked calmly. 

"I overslept, sir," Draco told him. "I'm sorry." 

"And why would you oversleep, Draco? Your mother taught you the Waking Charm when you were a toddler, as I recall." 

"Yes, sir. I forgot." 

His father looked at him sternly for a moment before raising his wand. "_Crucio_." 

Draco doubled over in pain, gritting his teeth as he tried desperately not to make a sound. Thankfully his father hadn't chosen to make it too intense, Draco would die if the others heard him scream... 

His father broke the spell, and Draco couldn't surpress a whimper. 

"Forgetfulness," Draco's father hissed, grabbing Draco by the arm and crouching down to his still hunched over son so they were face to face, "Is not a trait I wish to see in my son. Do you understand me, Draco?" 

"Yes sir," Draco said, his voice lacking some of its usual confidence. 

"Excellent. Now," his father said, opening the door again, "Perhaps you would care to demonstrate the Cruciatus curse to your comrades." 

Draco perked up a little at this. "Yes, sir," he said, and re-entered the cell. 

The following two weeks were gruelling, to say the least. The Slytherin sixth-years got up early even at the weekend, and spent practically the whole day training the Unforgivable curses, as well as the mental discipline to go with it. Draco could tell that his father wasn't impressed with the progress of some of them, Crabbe and Goyle in particular. This wasn't really that much of a surprise to Draco, though. They were, after all, incredibly stupid. 

However, they still had their purposes, which was exactly why he took _them_ to the Quidditch match on the last Saturday of the holidays instead of Pansy and Blaise, even though they had begged him to. At least he could trust Crabbe and Goyle to do exactly what he told them to and not try to boss _him_ around... 

The first thing he told them to do was to follow him. 

He had spotted Granger a few yards away, along with her eternal companions Potter and Weasley. Grinning, he made his way over, Crabbe and Goyle close behind him. 

Weasley was wearing a bright orange Chudley Cannon hat and was waving a big flag about with an idiotic grin on his face. Granger was wearing an orange scarf, as was Potter. They were both wearing sheepish expressions, which, as they they noticed Draco drawing closer, turned into rather embarrassed ones. 

"Well well well, what do we have here?" Draco drawled, coming to a stop in front of them. "The Chudley Cannons, eh Granger?" He sniggered. " I suppose you always are on the losing side..." 

After Granger had correctly guessed that Draco was going for the King's Gambit, she had tried to turn it around by offering her own Pawn as a counter-gambit. Draco had not fallen for it, and they were now well into the middle of the game, with Draco still in possession of decidedly more of his pieces than she was. He was going to win this one, he knew it. 

"What are you on about?" Potter was saying. "Why can't you just leave her alone, Malfoy? Haven't you caused her enough grief?" 

"No, Potter, I don't believe I have. Filthy little Mudblood deserves all she gets." 

At this both Potter and Weasley launched themselves at Draco, but before they could touch him Crabbe and Goyle stepped in front of him and rolled up their sleeves. With Granger trying to pull them back in addition to this, they seemed to decide that right now wasn't the best time to start a fight. 

Besides, the game was about to start. 

With one last smirk at the Gryffindors, Draco led Crabbe and Goyle back to their seats. While they began to stuff their faces with the Every Flavoured Beans they had bought on the way in, Draco mused over what had just transpired. 

Granger had obviously not told Potter or Weasley about their chess games. This wasn't surprising, since Draco hadn't told any of his friends either and would never dream of doing so. He was half tempted to tell Potter and Weasley just to see their reactions, but then _they_ would tell his friends, and that was even worse than telling them himself. 

Oh well. He would just have to settle for watching Granger squirm when he _threatened_ to tell them. 

As the game started, he put thoughts of Granger out of his mind. 

The Quaffle was released and the game started violently, with one of the three Falmouth Falcon Chasers catching it and the two Beaters hitting both Bludgers at the nearest Cannon Chaser at once, who was knocked off his broom, bleeding. 

The Cannons called for a time out ("Half a _minute_ into the game!" Draco groaned), then, looking rather dejected, took off again without their injured player. 

Playing aggressively, the Falcons got into a Hawkshead Attacking Formation and put the Quaffle through a hoop a minute later, and then continued to score seventeen more goals in less than thirty minutes, while the Cannons managed a measly two. 

"They have to be measly if Weasley supports them," Draco said to Goyle, grinning. 

A loud cheer made Draco look back at the pitch. The Cannons' Seeker was doing somersaults on his broom above the pitch, a huge grin on his face, one arm waving about... 

"He's got the Snitch!" Draco cried angrily. "The idiot knows he's going to lose, but he has to go and catch the Snitch anyway. It should be ours! The winners'!" He looked down and shook his head. "The bastard." 

"Uh, Draco..." said Crabbe, uncertainly, "But we won. Didn't we?" 

Draco sighed in exasperation, and watched Baeddan Klosk, the Falcons' Seeker, do the same as he came down to land. "Crabbe, that's not the point!" 

Goyle stared at him, confused. "But I thought-" 

"I'm going to the pub," Draco said, cutting him off and getting up to leave. 

Apparently unable to walk and talk at the same time, Crabbe and Goyle stood up and followed him silently. 

There was a wizard pub nearby, Draco knew. It wasn't much to look at (a pile of compost, in fact, if you were a Muggle), nor was it the cleanest of places, but there was always a party there after a big match had been played here, and when it got full enough you could persuade the landlord to sell anyone anything. 

It was just beginning to get dark on the remote, muddy marsh, though it was difficult to tell unless you looked hard at the already grey sky. It had been dreary and windy all day, not exactly perfect for Quidditch, but at least there hadn't been any rain to obscure the view. 

There was plenty to obscure the view in the pub. Apart from the throng of people who had somehow managed to get there before them, there was the smoke of at least five different illegal substances and possibly even more legal ones. There was not much light inside, not because of lack of windows, but because of lack of even remotely clean ones. 

Draco sent Goyle to get him a Firewhiskey (if there was one thing you could trust Goyle to do, it was to remember the names of any and all alcoholic beverages) and sat down with Crabbe at a little table in the corner. 

So far today hadn't been all that great. First his father had told him that he had to stay at Hogwarts over Easter because the spell needed to be tended to, and then his favourite Seeker had had the Snitch snatched out from under his nose by a Chudley Cannon player, of all things. 

It was bad. 

More than bad enough to warrant a Firewhiskey, anyway. 

Just the one, mind, or his father would notice. 

Draco drummed his fingers on the table as he waited for Goyle to return and looked around. 

The pub had been decorated for Christmas, though not very well. There was some tinsel slithering about above people's heads, a couple of fairies were sitting on a shelf next to some decidedly unclean looking glasses, and there was some slightly shrivelled mistletoe that looked like it had been flattened before being unceremoniously stuck to the ceiling. 

_Very festive_, Draco thought dryly. 

But then he saw something which cheered him up considerably. 

Granger was limping into the pub, supported by Potter and Weasley and with a bloody handkerchief tied around her right ankle. She was obviously trying very hard not to cry. 

Draco grinned. 

He would have to go over and taunt her later. When Weasley and Potter had left her alone again, which wouldn't be too long if the pretty girl who had just caught Weasley's eye was anything to go by. 

In actual fact it took several hours for Potter and Weasley to be drunk enough to leave her side. Draco doubted they would be drunk at all if he hadn't asked the barkeeper to sneak a little something extra into their butterbeers and then had him talk them into trying something stronger. But they were gone now, trying to dance to the so-called "music" coming from an enchanted old piano at the other end of the room. 

Granger was looking a lot more sober and quite forlorn, sitting alone at their table with her foot up on a rickety old stool Potter had found for her somewhere. Draco, having grown bored of Crabbe and Goyle's drunken antics at least an hour ago, decided that now was the perfect time for a little Granger-baiting. 

Picking up his second Firewhiskey, which he had ordered solely for appearances' sake, he sauntered over to where Granger was sitting and came to a stop right in front of her. She looked up and sighed when she saw him. 

"What happened to you, Granger?" Draco asked, raising his eyebrows at her injured ankle. "Trip over your scarf?" 

Blushing, Granger glanced to her right, where her cloak and bright orange scarf were folded neatly over the back of a chair. "Got bitten by a Dugbog," she muttered. 

Draco didn't bother to surpress his laughter as he pulled up the chair and sat down, ignoring the fact that he had caused the scarf to fall under the table. "So, where have Potty and Weasel disappeared to?" he asked idly. 

Granger made a face. "I know you put something in their drinks, Malfoy. They'd never act like this under normal circumstances." 

"Moi?" Draco asked in mock surprise. "My dearest Mudblood, I was all the way over there!" He gestured at the table he had just come from, which Crabbe was currently being sick underneath. 

He turned back to see Granger glaring at him. 

"Merlin, don't you have any other expressions?" he said, a little annoyed. 

"Not for you, Malfoy." 

"Really? 'Cause I seem to remember one of... oh, what would you call it? Ecstasy? Only a few months ago." 

Granger blushed and looked down. "Yeah, well, I was mentally unsound." 

"Aren't you always?" 

"I can remember a few chess games which seem to indicate that I'm not." 

"And I can think of one right now which indicates that maybe you are." 

"Only maybe? Malfoy, you must be going soft." She seemed to be regaining her confidence. "Anyway, even if I lose, I haven't lost two games in a row yet. We'll just have to have a rematch." 

"And what if I refuse?" 

She laughed. "Please, like you could. You're far to afraid that I'll think you're afraid." 

"I'll have you know that I could stop at any time if I chose to." 

She scoffed. "_Right_." 

Draco opened his mouth to reply, but at that moment something fell on his head, slid down his face, and landed on the table in front of him. 

It was a mistletoe leaf. 

Looking up, and noticing Granger do the same, he saw that they were sat right underneath one of the half-dead mistletoe twigs. 

He looked back at Granger, who looked back at him. 

Couldn't hurt much to ask, now could it? 

He picked up the leaf and played with it for a few seconds before returning his gaze to her. 

"Care for a different kind of rematch?" he asked carefully. 

She looked at him for a moment, a look that told him she knew exactly what he meant and was actually considering it. 

She sighed. "No," she said finally, still looking for all the world as though she was unable to tear her eyes away from him. 

There was an uncomfortable silence. 

"Well," Draco said after a few minutes, "I'm going to go and sit with some non-Mudbloods now, if you don't mind." He stood up. "You know I'm going to beat you this time, right?" 

She looked up at him and raised her eyebrows. 

"We'll see." 

Draco waited a few moments, but nothing more seemed to be forthcoming. That being the case, he went back to his table and tried to remember what spell to use to remove sick from someone's hair. 


	12. Chapter 12

It was a cold, stormy, windy and rainy day. Not exactly ideal for Quidditch. 

All the same, Draco thought bitterly, they should've won. 

He gritted his teeth as he helped Fallon, one of his chasers, back towards the castle. Fallon and Edmund, another Chaser, had been knocked off their brooms by a single Bludger sent their way by one of the Hufflepuff Beaters not ten minutes into the game. With only one Chaser left Slytherin had been easy prey for the Hufflepuff team. As Draco had discovered only _after_ he had caught the Snitch, Hufflepuff had managed to score _nineteen_ goals in the next fifteen minutes, while Slytherin only had the two they had scored before they had lost two Chasers. 

Draco felt quite embarrassed by the fact that he hadn't really been counting Hufflepuff's goals, though in his defence he had never thought it _possible_ for Hufflepuff to score that much. Not against Slytherin. 

He just hoped Fallon and Edmund weren't too badly injured, he couldn't afford to waste time training up another new player. Not that Fizzlewinch had performed badly, it was just... Slytherin had to be perfect. 

"Get out of the way," he said impatiently to the Gryffindor third-year blocking the entrance to the castle. He wanted to get up to the hospital wing as soon as possible so he could find out when his Chasers would be able to play again. 

Bursting into the Entrance Hall, he saw that Madam Pomfrey was already on her way down to them. Relieved, Draco put Fallon down on the floor with a grunt. Bloody heavy, he was... 

"Is he going to be all right?" Draco asked in his best concerned voice. He needed to know, he needed to start planning... 

Madam Pomfrey took Fallon's pulse and felt the area where he had been hit. "I should think so," she said calmly. 

"Will he be able to play Quidditch again? Soon? Because Fallon loves Quidditch, and he'd be very upset if we had to replace him..." Draco half-lied, trying to get the information he wanted. 

"He'll be fine in time for the next match, don't worry," Madam Pomfrey assured him. 

Phew. 

"What about Edmund?" Draco asked. Edmund had been in front with Reagan Bletchley, the Slytherin Keeper, which must have been how Madam Pomfrey knew to come down here. 

"He'll be fine as well." 

Draco heaved a sigh of relief. It would be fine, it would all be fine, they would win the Cup, they would train and then they would win... 

"So when will they be out of hospital?" 

"Well, Edmund can leave tomorrow if he makes sure to take care of himself. Fallon may have to stay a little longer." 

"How much longer?" Draco asked, his heart sinking. 

"Oh, at least a week, dear," Madam Pomfrey said, casting a Floating Charm on Fallon and heading off up the stairs. 

Damn. 

Damn, damn, bloody damn! 

Not good. This was not good. Fallon was his best Chaser. Without him there for all the practices, the others wouldn't be challenged enough, they might start getting complacent... and their match against Ravenclaw was only a little more than a month away, just before the Easter holidays... 

_Damn_. 

He would have to think about this. He _had_ to win the Cup this time, after Potter had won the year before_ and_ in their third year, and especially since there wouldn't _be_ a Cup next year if all went according to plan, which of course it would... 

How could he fix this? He had to fix it, they would have to spend every free moment training... maybe he should come up with a new training program, there had to be something better than what they were doing already... he could ask the Ravenclaw Keeper. What was her name again? He had had a one night stand type thing with her last year, didn't think he had hurt her feelings _too_ much... If he could find her and use his charms on her again, he was sure he could squeeze some information out of her. 

Yeah. Okay. That was the plan. Now to write it down, and all would be fine... 

He scanned the Great Hall for signs of the Ravenclaw Keeper at breakfast the next morning. He couldn't remember her name, but that shouldn't be too much of a problem if he played his cards right. He didn't spot her until just before the Hall started emptying, sitting next to her Seeker friend, blonde pigtails bouncing as she rose from the table. Draco rose as well and joined the increasing number of students heading of to their classes. 

"You go on without me," he told Crabbe and Goyle. He didn't want them spoiling his chances. 

It was rather difficult to follow her through the crowd, and several times he thought he'd lost her... but no, there she was, heading into that classroom. If he could just get through this throng of bloody second-years... 

"Draco!" 

Draco turned around. Crabbe and Goyle were making their way back towards him. 

"What?!" he asked irritably. 

Crabbe looked terrified, as well he should. Goyle was just nervous. 

"We, um, we forgot what lesson we've got," he said, not looking Draco in the eye. 

"Merlin! You two are just _incredible_! Charms, look, that way!" he pointed in the direction of the staircase. 

Now they both looked terrified, and just stood there trying not to. 

"_Go_!" Draco shouted. 

They finally left, and Draco looked around for Ravenclaw Keeper Girl. 

He had lost her again. 

This was _not_ his best day ever. 

Sighing, he tried to remember where she had been before Crabbe and Goyle had decided on yet another public display of stupidity. 

Ah yes. That classroom. 

Hurrying, he walked the few steps to the door and entered. 

There was no one there. Well, no one apart from... 

"Granger," he said distractedly, looking around the room. 

She looked mildly surprised to see him there. "Malfoy," she said, confused. 

She wasn't here. She definitely wasn't here. 

Sighing yet again, he turned to leave. 

"Malfoy," Granger said again. 

He looked back at her. "What?" 

"Are we still playing chess tonight?" 

"Why wouldn't we be?" 

She shrugged and looked back down at whatever it was she was writing. 

He left and began scanning the rapidly emptying hallways again. 

He couldn't have said no, he thought to himself, what would she think of him? He couldn't tell her how worried he was about the Quidditch Cup, it would just add to her Gryffindor superiority complex. No, better to keep up appearances and pretend everything was normal. 

Except it wasn't, because he'd lost Ravenclaw Keeper Girl and if he kept searching for her now he would be late for Charms. 

He kicked the bottom step of the stone staircase a few times to vent his frustration, then forced himself to calm down using a focusing technique his father had taught him. When he felt that he once again conveyed an air of cool stoicism, he walked confidently up to the classroom. 

He spent the lesson planning the Quidditch training session for Wednesday, writing down things to tell the team and drawing diagrams of formations they should try. With Crabbe and Goyle on either side of him it wasn't difficult to hide the fact that he wasn't working from Professor Flitwick; however, he had to at least _look_ like he was paying attention in Transfiguration afterwards. He knew McGonagall disliked him and she would _love_ the opportunity to punish him in some way. He wasn't going to give it to her. Besides, it would mess up his training schedule if he got detention, and he couldn't afford to have anything like that happen. 

He finally caught up with Ravenclaw Keeper Girl at lunch. He learned that her name was Brenda, mentally filed that information under "temporarily pertinent" and asked her to come for an evening stroll with him the next day. 

She turned him down. 

He asked about another night of the week. 

She declined. 

Damn. 

He had read her wrong. Reading people wrong was a serious mistake, his father had taught him. In the wrong situation it could get you killed. 

Draco really didn't want to be killed. 

He also didn't want to lose the Quidditch Cup to Potter yet again, which was looking unpleasantly likely, considering that Gryffindor had already won their match against Ravenclaw. 

It made Draco want to kick things again, but he couldn't do that in public, and finding and flirting with Brenda had taken up his whole lunch hour so he had to hurry to Potions on an empty stomach. He didn't have time to grab a bite to eat _or_ kick anything afterwards, because he had to finish his homework so that he would be free to play chess with Granger after supper. 

The chess game wasn't going so well either. Yes, Draco had won the last one, but, as Granger had predicted, it didn't look like she was going to lose two in a row. Draco hoped he could at least keep the game going until next time; he really didn't want to make his day any worse by losing to a Mudblood. 

She was waiting for him in front of the prefects' meeting room, absently stroking her cat, who was rubbing himself against her legs.. He reached for the doorknob, but she pulled his arm back. 

"We can't play in there tonight," she told him. 

"Why not?" 

"The fifth-year prefects are planning some kind of post-OWL celebration." 

Draco groaned. This was just what he needed. "Can't we just throw them out?" he asked, irritated. 

"Malfoy, they have just as much right to be in there as we do. More, in fact, since they're actually doing something that resembles prefects' duties. Besides, we're outnumbered four to one." 

Draco sighed. He should have known something like this was happen, just to ice the cake that was his _wonderful_ day. 

"But it's okay," Granger was saying. "I know somewhere we can go." 

_Probably a broom closet,_ Draco thought miserably as he followed her and the cat up to the seventh floor. 

They stopped in front of a tapestry depicting several very ugly trolls wearing tutus, and Granger walked up and down in front of it three times, furrowing her brow. 

Draco was just about to make a sarcastic comment about Granger doing ballet when a door appeared in the wall opposite. 

Granger turned the doorknob and held it open for him, looking at him expectantly. 

He went in and she followed, closing the door behind her. 

The room was perfect. 

A table with a large chessboard stood in the middle, a very comfortable looking chair on either side. On the other side of these was a large fireplace filled with big, roaring flames, and by the wall there was a smaller table, containing all kinds of drinks and snacks. Opposite this table a green sofa was standing against the wall. Granger's cat was already making himself comfortable on it. 

Draco turned back to Granger, the confusion evident on his face. 

"It's called the Room of Requirement," she told him. "It gives you whatever you need." 

"Interesting," was the best response Draco could muster. Not a very good one, all things considered. 

Granger smiled smugly. "Shall we?" she asked, producing the piece of parchment where they had written down the latest positions of their pieces. 

Draco joined her at the table and began pushing his pieces into place. They offered minimal resistance or even advice, something he was entirely unused to. 

"It's your turn," Granger said. 

Trying to ignore her obvious glee at the state of the game, he stared down at the board and made his move. 

It was a good one. 

He could tell because Granger still hadn't won two hours later. 

Sadly, this didn't seem to quash her enthusiasm in the slightest. She gazed at the board intensely, her dark eyes narrowed in concentration, biting her lip so hard Draco was sure she was going to draw blood soon. 

She looked... not quite ugly, Draco had to admit. 

She smiled to herself and reached out to move a piece. 

Her cat chose that moment to jump on the table and knock both the board and the pieces to the floor. The board landed with a resounding crack, then it was split down the middle and the pieces were in pieces. 

It very nearly made Draco jump. 

"Crookshanks!" Granger cried, obviously very upset. "Look what you've done!" 

The cat just purred loudly and rubbed her face with his before jumping back down to the floor and promptly falling asleep by the fire. 

Granger looked down at the mess on the carpet. She seemed to be fighting back tears and fatigue at the same time. 

Draco, meanwhile, was watching her and having other thoughts. 

"Granger," he said quietly. 

She didn't seem to notice. 

"_Granger_," he repeated, a little louder this time. 

She sniffed, but didn't look up. 

Draco stood up and rounded the table so he stood in front of her. 

"Hermione," he said. 

This time she reacted, looking at him, surprised. 

She really was not that ugly, Draco thought, studying her face. 

He was tired, so his judgement might not be sound, but dammit, he had had an absolutely awful day, and he could really do with some- 

His train of thought was interrupted by her kissing him. 

* * *

**Author's Note:** Hi! I'm Jade, the author :) I just wanted to ask all you lovely people who are reading this to do two things. 

One: if you leave a review, please tell me what you like and dislike about my story, and especially this chapter. I especially appreciate comments on characterization and plot. 

Two: I've recently started a website for great Draco/Hermione fanfiction. You can find a link to it on my profile, I'd be really grateful if you would stop by, take a look around (maybe submit a fanfic challenge?) and sign the guestbook. 

That's pretty much all I have to say. Thanks for all the nice reviews and I hope you like the story! And if you do, why not read and review my two short Harry Potter fics? They're both DM/HG, in case you were wondering :D 


	13. Chapter 13

"I'm afraid we'll have to kill him. This kind of betrayal is unacceptable." Lord Voldemort rose majestically from his chair and walked around the desk. "It's a pity, really. The boy had such potential." 

"Yes, Master." Lucius Malfoy bowed. "I will see to it directly." 

Draco drew back from the crack in the door he had been spying on them from. He would have to run for it, though he knew they would get him in the end. Grabbing his broomstick from where he had placed it against the stone wall, he set off into the night. 

It was dark and windy and he had to hold on tightly to prevent himself from falling off or being blown off course, but eventually the huge black castle vanished from view and Draco deemed it safe to land. 

He set down in a forest. The many branches and leaves made it difficult to see as he ran through the trees, clutching his broom. 

"Draco?" 

He stopped and turned around. 

Hermione was standing there, pale as death and looking scared to it as well, wearing a black lace dress which made most of her difficult to make out in the darkness. 

"Hermione!" He tried to keep his voice down. "You have to leave! They're coming for me, if they find you here they'll kill you, too!" 

She looked confused. "But I love you." 

He shook his head. "Why would you love me?" 

She grabbed his hand and began to run, pulling him through the night, through the trees and bracken until they reached Hogsmeade and were both all scratched and bloody from branches and thorns. 

They hid in the Three Broomsticks, crouching behind the bar. Hermione took off her dress to reveal a bloodstained white petticoat underneath. She tore a strip off the dress and began to bandage a particularly deep cut on his thigh. 

He put his hand on hers and she stopped. 

"You don't have to do this," he told her. 

She smiled and kissed him. "Don't be silly," she said. 

"But why-" 

"Shh." 

She kissed him again, a longer, more tender, kiss this time, one that felt like it could go on forever. 

It didn't, because Draco's father burst in on them. 

"Quick," said Draco, leaping onto his broom, "Get on!" 

Hermione got on and wrapped her arms around his waist and they were off, flying out of Hogsmeade and up towards Hogwarts, over the Quidditch pitch to the changing rooms, Lucius in pursuit a mere hundred feet behind them. 

Suddenly Draco lost control of the broom, barely avoided crashing into the wall, and landed on the grass in front of the castle in a most unsightly fashion. 

Hermione grabbed his hand again and they ran inside, hurried along a hallway and hid under her bed. 

Lucius followed and pulled the mattress off before upturning the bed and grabbing Hermione by the arm. He raised his arm, holding Draco's sword high above his head. 

"Draco... I love you..." 

There was the swish of the sword and a lot of blood, and then Lucius ran at Draco. 

Draco ducked half-heartedly, his mind preoccupied with the question: 

_Why?_

Lucius lunged again, screaming "Mudblood!" and Draco was confused because he wasn't a Mudblood and Hermione was dead...   


And Draco woke up, sweaty and with his heart beating a lot faster than it should have been. He took a few deep breaths and attempted to calm himself down. 

_Well... **that** was disturbing..._

He was lying on the sofa in the Room of Requirement, naked, Granger half on top of him in an equal state of undress. 

_Huh._

He shook his head, trying to clear it of the disturbing images from the dream that kept popping up. 

However, after a while he thought he realized what it meant. Well, part of it. 

Something didn't make sense, and Draco didn't like it when things didn't make sense. 

"Granger?" 

"Mmm?" 

"Why did you...?" He paused, licking his lips. " I mean, you _hate_ me. And unless I'm very much mistaken your grandmother didn't die this time." 

She looked up at him, arching her eyebrows. "First of all, Malfoy, I don't hate you. I just think you're an arrogant prat." 

He smirked at this. 

She ignored him, continuing: "As for the why... I suppose I just felt like it." She shrugged. "I mean, what I saw yesterday... maybe it just made me... made me not dislike you quite as much." 

Draco knitted his brow, confused. "What did you see yesterday?" 

"The way you were actually concerned for your Chaser. Honestly, Malfoy, I was surprised you had it in you." 

_Ohhh... **that**._

"Well," he said, "You know... take care of your own and all that..." 

She seemed satisfied with this response, because she sighed and rested her head on his chest again. 

So... she had read him wrong. Mentally, he shook his head. 

Reading people wrong could get you killed. 

Then again, Granger would most likely be killed soon anyway, with the war looming over the horizon. 

Until then, however, Draco fully intended to milk this for all it was worth. 

He smiled. Sex was so much better than chess.   
  


**Author's Note:** Why does it take so long to update, you ask? Well, because believe it or not fanfiction is not the most important thing in my life right now. Also, sometimes inspiration fails to strike. And sometimes I want to have the next chapter finished or at least almost finished before I post, so that I can say things like this: **Next chapter will be posted tomorrow** (and will be a hell of a lot longer than this sad excuse). I just didn't feel I could leave you with just this for too long (and you all must know by know how long it can take me to update). Thanks for all the great reviews, I appreciate them. Especially the ones that say more than "I love this fic please continue", because I _know_ this isn't perfect, and anything you can say to help make it better is always appreciated. Thanks, and there will be more tomorrow! 

Oh yeah, and please visit my D/Hr site (link on my profile) and recommend some stories :D 


	14. Chapter 14

The grass was wet and squelchy under Draco's feet as he snuck through the silent grounds, heading for the lake. 

He wasn't sure if it would help that he was wearing his pyjamas and not fully dressed if he got caught out of bed this late, but he had thought it best to take as many precautions as possible. He had his cloak on over the pyjamas for camouflage in the darkness and protection against the cold, as well as to conceal what he would be bringing back from the lake. 

What he would be bringing back from the lake would hopefully be a piece of flesh from the giant squid. A piece of horrible, wet, slimy, stinking squid flesh, which he would have to dive into the lake and attack the squid to get. 

He was not looking forward to it. 

However, he reminded himself as he climbed over a rock to get to the narrow strip of sand by the water, it was needed for the spell and there was no other way to get it. There were other giant squids, of course, but for the spell to work properly the flesh had to be exactly two hours old when they poured a potion over it and threw it on the fire. 

That did _not_ mean that he liked the fact that _he_ had been sent to mutilate the squid while Blaise and Pansy got to sit in the comfortable, warm, dry common room preparing the potion. He wasn't _that_ much better than them at this kind of thing, surely? 

_"It will serve to test your skills,"_ his father had said when they had met in Hogsmeade to discuss it. 

What that meant was that his father hadn't been able to think of an easier way to get it. Draco really wished that wasn't the case, but his father was the most intelligent man he knew, and if _he_ couldn't think of a way then there probably wasn't one. 

This wasn't much of a comfort. 

Draco shook his head as he took off his clothes and removed the knife from its concealed sheath in his cloak. Theoretically he could use a spell to cut the piece of meat out of the squid, but he had decided that the dagger would be faster and easier. 

Picking up his wand with his other hand, he whispered _"Lumos!" _and stepped into the water. 

It was freezing. Draco had to stifle a gasp as he waded in as deep as he could. Then he cast a Bubble charm on his head, gritted his chattering teeth, and dived. 

He could hardly see more than a few feet ahead even with his wand. He wouldn't know that he had found the squid until he was practically on top of it, especially since all he had to guide him was the direction his wand was pointing, with no indication of distance. 

_Brilliant,_ he thought, kicking his legs. _Just brilliant._

He had Quidditch practise tomorrow! He had booked the pitch for 7 am, which meant getting up at 6:15 at the latest if he wanted to fit in getting dressed, cleaning his teeth, having breakfast, getting down to the pitch and changing before then. He did _not_ need to be hunting a squid in the middle of the night. 

He had been training his team harder than ever in the last few weeks, they _had_ to win their upcoming match against Ravenclaw or they would have no chance at all of winning the Quidditch Cup. In between all this and meeting regularly with Granger for... well, not really for the chess, anymore... Anyway, with all this going on he would much rather have been fast asleep in bed right now than in the middle of a lake. 

Suddenly he felt something cold and hard wrap around his ankle. 

He looked back, slightly alarmed, and was relieved to see that it was just a Grindylow. Draco twisted in the water and hit the beast's fingers hard with his wand, causing it to release its grip. He used the Avada Kedavra curse to kill it and kicked it away angrily. 

_Pesky sea creatures._

He swam on, becoming ever more agitated. So agitated, in fact, that he didn't notice that he had finally found the Giant Squid until he was face to ugly face with it. 

The squid nudged Draco with its nose. Draco pulled a disgusted face and swam around to its side. Wrapping his legs around a tentacle, he raised the knife and cut into the squid's flesh as deep as he could. 

The squid bucked wildly underneath him, trying to get him off, but Draco held on determinedly and tried to saw a piece out of its side. 

He slipped and cut into his own arm, but after a few seconds of swearing he went back to the job. He had got this far, he wasn't going to swim all the way back without the thing he had come for... 

And then the air inside the bubble on his head rang as he screamed because of the searing pain he suddenly felt in his shoulder. 

He turned around, still clinging to the squid with his legs, and saw a long spear coming out of his shoulder. A merperson was hanging in the water a few feet behind him. In her arms was the dead Grindylow. 

_Oh hell._

_That thing must be her **pet**!_

The merperson, seeing that he spear hadn't done as much damage as she had hoped, rushed at Draco and pulled it out before he had time to react in any other way than screaming again. 

The merperson backed away, obviously preparing to attack again. There was no time for Draco to use his wand; the only thing he could do was to twist away as the spear came at him again, so that it was embedded deeply into the squid's stomach instead of Draco's. The merperson took hold of the spear yet again and tried to pull it out, but it was in too deep. Draco took advantage of her momentary distraction to return to his very own piece of squid meat. He sawed at it frantically, trying to detach it from the rest of the squid before the merwoman gave up her attempts to retrieve her spear. 

He almost had it when she attacked him again, beating him all over with her fists. 

Then she bit him. 

The shock of this caused Draco to start up and rip the rest of the piece of flesh off the squid's back. Recovering and realizing that his mission was accomplished, he hit the merperson in the face with his elbow and began to swim upwards as fast as he could. 

He needed to see in which direction the shore was the closest, so that he could swim there as quickly as possible and hopefully _not_ be caught up by the merperson or the Giant Squid. He dared not look down for fear of losing speed, but he knew that they were in hot pursuit, and he did not need any more injuries, thank you very much... 

Finally his head broke through the surface of the water and he looked around wildly. He didn't waste his breath on a sigh of relief when he saw that the edge of the lake was only a few hundred yards away; instead he began to swim towards it as quickly as he possibly could, clutching the slimy piece of meat in one hand and his wand in the other. His shoulder hurt like hell as he struggled through the water, but he tried his best to ignore it. 

He was almost there now... only a few more yards... 

For the second time today he felt fingers close around his ankles, trying to pull him back beneath the surface. He kicked at them with his free foot and they let go. Turning around, he pointed his wand at the merperson. "_Petrificus Totalus!_" he cried. 

The merperson froze. Draco finally allowed himself a sigh of relief as he swam the last few dozen feet to the shore. 

The Giant Squid was nowhere to be seen. Draco closed his eyes and collapsed on the sand. 

He was _never_ doing _that_ again. 

He allowed himself a few moments to regain his breath before he stood up gingerly and performed a drying spell on himself. His shoulder hurt like hell, and he could feel blood trickling down his back. He only hoped Blaise or Pansy would be able to do something about it, since going to anyone else would certainly cause suspicion. 

Wincing, he made his way back to where he had left his clothes. It was only when he reached them that he realized he had lost his knife. 

_Oh hell!_

He deliberated for a moment, but soon decided that it was not worth trying to find it. It was a pretty nondescript knife, and it was unlikely that anyone would find it anyway, especially if it was drifting around at the bottom of the lake. 

No, what he needed now was to get back up to the castle, deliver the meat and find some way to fix his shoulder. This being the case, he got dressed, sealed the piece of flesh in a special bag he had prepared, and tucked it into a pocket in his cloak. 

The walk back to the castle was long, tedious and painful. He had to make a large detour around Hagrid's hut. He wouldn't have bothered, but the light was on, and that could mean that Dumbledore or one of the other teachers was down there visiting him and could come out any second. He couldn't afford to let any of them to see him in this state. 

When he had finally managed to sneak through the door and into the main hall, he allowed himself a moment's respite from the agony of walking. He dreaded walking down the steps to the common room; it was sure to be agony. Still, he was going to have to do it sooner or later... 

"Malfoy?!" 

Draco spun around in shock, bumping his shoulder into a pillar because of the movement and hissing in pain. "Granger? What the hell are you doing here?!" 

She crossed her arms. Draco noted that she was wearing her cloak and that there was mud on her shoes. She had obviously come from outside. Had probably not been far behind him, in fact. 

"I could ask you the same question," she was saying. "What happened to your arm?" 

"Nothing." He turned to leave. 

"Malfoy, it's bleeding right through your cloak." 

"I told you, it's nothing!" 

"I'm going to get Madam Pomfrey." 

"No!" He whirled around again. "Don't you dare." 

"Why not?" She was clearly suspicious. 

"It's... embarrassing?" 

"More embarrassing than being hit in the face by a bludger during practise?" 

"_Yes_." 

She sighed. "Look, at least come up to the Room of Requirement. We can get some bandages or something." 

"I'm not going all the way up to the seventh floor just for a bandage, Granger, okay?" 

"All right then, you can wait in the prefects' bathroom while _I_ go up there and get some bandages." 

"Look Granger, why do you care so bloody much anyway? It's none of your business!" 

Her eyes widened. "How could I _not_ care after the things we've done together?!" 

Draco shrugged, then instantly regretted it as a fresh wave of pain was sent through his shoulder. "_I _don't care." 

"Yeah, well, you're you. Now are you coming or not?" 

Draco weighed his options. If he refused, he would have to rely on Blaise and Pansy to help him with his shoulder, and quite frankly he didn't really trust them that much. It would also probably make Granger even more suspicious of him than she already was, which would be a bad thing in many respects. The others wouldn't need the squid meat for at least another hour. As long as he got back in time, going with Granger seemed the best option. 

He sighed. "Fine, whatever." 

Granger nodded and began to climb the staircase, slowing down when she realized Draco was in too much pain to keep up. Mentally, he marvelled at this; he certainly wouldn't have been behaving like that had their situations been reversed. 

But it was... nice, that she would do that for him. 

They reached the prefects' bathroom. 

"Right," Granger said. "You wait in there. I'll be back in a few minutes." She squeezed his uninjured arm before sprinting on up the stairs. 

Draco let himself in and sat down on the tiled floor. Carefully, he removed his cloak and pyjama top. Granger was right; they were covered in blood. He would have to clean them before morning or someone might see who shouldn't. 

The wound in his shoulder was still bleeding, though it was slightly crusty around the edges now. Draco decided that he probably shouldn't touch it too much for fear of making it worse. 

He only hoped it wouldn't be too painful for him to fly tomorrow. If Slytherin lost... if Potter won the Cup _again_... 

Draco shuddered. He didn't want to think about it. 

"Here..." 

Draco looked up to see that Granger had returned, slightly out of breath, with various medical supplies. 

She put it all down on the floor and sat down next to him. She made a funny noise in the back of her throat when she saw his injury. 

"Malfoy, this is really bad." 

Draco sighed. "Granger, for the last time, I'm _not_ going to Madam Pomfrey. Just do what you can, I'll be fine." 

"If you say so..." 

She dabbed at his shoulder with something wet, making him hiss. 

"I take it it's clear to you that I'll kill you if you breathe a word of this to anyone," he said, annoyed that she had made him show even the tiniest bit of weakness. 

"Crystal clear, Malfoy." 

She continued to dab. Draco wondered if she really thought he could kill her. Probably not. He wondered if he would have the opportunity to prove her wrong. 

"Hand me that jar," Granger said, pointing to a small glass container holding some kind of translucent paste. 

He did so. She took it, unscrewed the lid and began to rub it into the wound with her fingers. 

If it didn't hurt so much, Draco mused, he might enjoy this... 

But it did. A lot. _Ow,_ he thought, gritting his teeth. 

"Okay." Granger screwed the lid back on the jar. "Now pass me some of those bandages." 

Draco complied. "You could get them yourself, you know," he complained. 

"In case you've forgotten, Malfoy, it's you I'm doing this for. Lift your arm a little." 

"In case _you've_ forgotten, Granger, I didn't actually _want_ you to do this for me." He raised his arm and tried hard not to make any kind of noise in response to the searing pain ripping through it. 

"That's only because of your stupid Malfoy pride. I wouldn't be surprised if you died from it one day, if you really think it's more important than your health." She began to wrap the bandage around his shoulder. 

"You just don't understand, do you Granger?" 

"I don't much care to, Malfoy." 

Granger moved back around to Draco's front so she could bandage him more easily. There was blood on her fingers, he noticed. His blood. For some reason that made him feel... strange. Actually, it was more the fact that she didn't seem to care that his blood was on her hands that made him feel... well, whatever it was he was feeling. 

"There," Granger said, fastening the bandage. "That's the best I can do. Just try not to move that arm too much, okay?" 

"Like this?" Draco grabbed her hand. It didn't hurt too much as long as he didn't move anything past his elbow. 

Granger was obviously trying to look annoyed, but the hint of an amused smile managed to fight its way to her mouth. "Yes, like that." 

"Hmm." He played with her blood-stained fingers before lifting her hand to his mouth and kissing the back of it. "Okay." 

The smile was more prominent now, as Granger carefully lowered his hand again and shifted her position on the floor so she could kiss him on the mouth. 

She broke away after only a few seconds and ran her hand down his good arm. "You should probably get some sleep," she told him. 

"Nonsense! Malfoys don't need sleep." 

Granger laughed. "I know from experience that _that's_ a lie, Malfoy." She gathered the remains of the medicine and stood up. 

"It is not. I only pretend to sleep." 

"In that case, you do a very good fake snore." 

"I do not snore!" 

"If you say so. Chess tomorrow?" 

"If I have time." 

Granger rolled her eyes, but her smile was still firmly in place. "I'll see you then," she said. Then she left. 

Draco sat back and sighed. Dealing with Granger was sometimes... unsettling. Especially when she smiled, and spoke in that certain tone of voice... it made him not mean some of the things he said in quite the way he intended to mean them. It was disturbing. 

Another thing that was disturbing was that he still wasn't sure exactly why Granger "did those things with him", as she had so eloquently put it earlier. She surely couldn't be in it for the same reasons as him, she was a bloody _Gryffindor_, for Merlin's sake. 

He didn't like not understanding her. It made him feel... troubled. 

But right now he had other things to worry about. 

He put his pyjama shirt back on and stood up, slinging his cloak over his shoulder. Then he picked up his wand and headed back down to the common room. 

He arrived with ample time to spare; Pansy and Blaise were arguing over one of their instructions when he swept in, putting every effort into walking normally. 

"Draco!" Pansy set upon him the moment she caught sight of him. "Tell Blaise it's arrowroot and not adderroot." 

Draco took the parchment she shoved in his face and read it calmly. "Pansy, you idiot, of _course_ it's adderroot." 

Pansy went red with embarrassment. Draco held the parchment under her nose and pointed at the pertinent word. 

"Sorry," she mumbled. 

Draco brushed her idiocy aside as he reached inside his cloak and retrieved the bag with the piece of meat. "Voila!" he declared, tossing it onto the table. 

"Ooh!" Blaise opened it eagerly, eyes aglow. "Oh Draco, was it terribly hard to get?" 

"Not at all," Draco said, non-chalantly dropping himself on an armchair. "It was so easy, even one of you two halfwits could have done it. If we ever have to do anything like this again, you will have to have the honour." He gazed into the fire so as to appear distant and unconcerned. "It's beneath me." 

Blaise and Pansy really did look honoured that he would entrust them with such a task, the stupid, gullible idiots. They obviously considered it a privilege to be asked to do painful, unflattering things in the middle of the night. 

"Well, I'm glad to see things are running so smoothly," Draco said, rising from the chair again. "I trust you can finish the spell without me?" 

Not waiting for the response that would surely be a whiny "no", Draco stood in front of the table and tapped the piece of squid meat with his wand. "_Enumero,_" he said, and fiery digits appeared above it, slowly counting upwards. 

He turned back to Blaise and Pansy. "You know what to do. Throw the potion on the fire when it says 1:59:55, and the meat when it says 2:00. Goodnight." 

And with that he turned around and headed for his bed.   


  


Previous Chapter   



	15. Chapter 15

Draco pulled his cloak tighter around his body to protect himself from the wind as he hurried down into Hogsmeade. He was supposed to be meeting his father in the Hog's Head in three minutes, and Lucius Malfoy did not appreciate tardiness. Furthermore, the weather wasn't exactly inviting him to stay outside. 

He swerved around Potter and his gang, who exited Zonko's about five seconds before he passed it. Granger smiled at him. He managed a quick grin before he rushed on down the street. 

He arrived in front of the pub out of breath and with about thirty seconds to spare, so he took a moment to slow his breathing and make sure he seemed nothing but calm and composed. Then he went in. 

His father was seated at a small table in the corner and did not even look up when Draco entered. Draco walked over confidently and sat down with his usual aplomb. 

"Father," he said neutrally. 

"Draco." His father's eyes finally met Draco's own. "I trust you are well?" 

"Yes sir." Draco would have said yes even if his hair was on fire; it was what his father expected of him. A little - well, not _huge_, anyway- hole in the shoulder was nothing. 

"And everything else is... well?" He meant the spell. 

"Yes sir." Apart from the hole in the shoulder Draco had got while he was _ensuring_ that everything else was well. 

"Excellent. Your progress so far has been satisfactory, Draco." High praise. "But that does not mean that you can allow yourself any lapses in other areas." 

Other areas? He hadn't found out about he and Granger, had he? But Draco hadn't done anything wrong, not really! She was just a Mudblood, it wasn't as though he had allowed himself to be _seen_ with her or anything... 

"For instance, certain athletic areas." 

Athle-- Ohh. Quidditch. 

"You know how _proud_ I am of your place on the Quidditch team, Draco. You should not feel pressured to give it less attention than you otherwise would." 

In other words, Draco had better not fall behind because of the spell or people would get suspicious. Draco didn't think he _was _falling behind, but the lost Quidditch match had obviously convinced his father otherwise. 

He could understand that; after all, it _had_ been against Hufflepuff. 

"No sir. I won't." 

"Excellent. Now Draco, why don't you have a drink?" Keeping up appearances. 

"Yes sir, thank you." 

They sat in silence for ten minutes before his father finished his drink and stood up. "Well, Draco, I'm afraid I must take my leave of you. I do hope everything continues to go well." 

"Yes sir." Draco stood up too. "Good day, father." 

"Good day." 

His father left and Draco sat down again. He waited another five minutes to finish his drink before heading back outside himself. He grabbed a sandwich in the Three Broomsticks and ate it on his way back to Hogwarts, where he immediately changed into his Quidditch robes and went out onto the pitch. 

He had booked the pitch for the whole day, although the booking was probably superfluous on a Hogsmeade Saturday. He had also booked it for himself alone; he was sure he would have been able to get the other members of his team to participate somehow, but he wouldn't have been thanked for it and he didn't need any animosity during the match next week. 

Besides, he needed to work out the best way to fly without causing unbearable agony in his still not exactly painless shoulder. He had _tried_ to do it the day after the Painful Squid Escapade. He still didn't know how he had managed to convince his team-mates that nothing was wrong with him. After that he had just sat in the stands giving orders during practice, answering any questions with a sarcastic remark or an insult or two. But next week he would have to be able to fly. Next he week he would have to be able to _win_. 

He climbed onto his broom gingerly, holding onto it with his good hand. So far so good. He tried holding on with the other hand, the one attached to the arm attached to the bad shoulder. It ached, but the pain was bearable. He kicked off and managed to fly around the pitch a few times without fainting, which was a good sign. 

Now came the tricky part. 

Draco landed again and opened the trunk containing the Quidditch balls. He let out the Snitch, closed the trunk again and sat on it for five minutes to give the Snitch a head start. Then he mounted his broom and went about trying to find it. That was the easy part; after that came the diving and catching. Draco found himself slightly nervous about attempting those things. 

Still, only one thing for it... 

He dived. 

_Painpainpainpainpainpain!_

He ignored it. A moment later his fingers closed around the Snitch. 

His goal accomplished, Draco allowed himself to cry out and landed as quickly as he could. 

**_Ow_.**

But he was still alive, still conscious even, and that was certainly something. 

He practised on Sunday as well, and on every weekday after supper, even when the Ravenclaw team had booked the pitch too and he had to wait until they were done. 

By Friday night Draco felt he actually had a good chance at winning. If he could catch the Snitch with his good arm it wouldn't even hurt that much. 

He had just got off his broom to try and get the Bludger he had let out back in the trunk when he noticed Granger walking onto the field. 

"What are you doing here?" he asked. 

"We had a date," Granger said. 

Draco snorted. "We don't _have_ dates, Granger." 

"Oh yeah? What is it that we have, then?" 

"We have... appointments." 

Granger laughed. "If you say so." 

"I do. In fa- Watch out!" 

Draco pushed Granger out of the way of the Bludger hurtling towards her and caught it. It hurt. He carried the struggling ball over to the trunk and strapped it back in. Then he slammed the trunk shut and sat on it, wincing. 

"Does it still hurt?" Granger asked, sitting down next to him. 

"No." 

"You're lying." 

"Of _course_ I'm bloody lying! You saw how deep the hole was!" 

"Then why did you lie?" 

"Because sometimes I do lie." 

"But _why_?" 

"Just shut up, Granger, okay?" 

"Don't talk to me like that." 

"Like what?" 

"Like I'm one of your Slytherin cronies who takes every word you say for gospel and doesn't dare say anything in their own defence. I know you, Malfoy, and I know you're not the be-all and end-all of everything that's young and male." 

Draco grinned. "If that's true, how come you're still here?" 

She hesitated, then put a hand on his knee. "Maybe I don't want be-all and end-all." 

"If _that's_ true you must be even more insane than I thought. And you don't _know_ me, Granger. How could you?" 

"I know there's more to you than meets the eye." 

"Maybe because I'm smart enough not to wear my heart on my sleeve like you Gryffindor freaks." 

"We hardly do that, Malfoy, and you know it." 

Draco was stumped for an answer for a moment, but then realized that he had the perfect one. "In that case, you don't really need your sleeve, do you?" he said, putting his hand under her shirt and pulling her arm out of the sleeve. 

"Malfoy, it's cold." 

"Which is why the point of this would be to make us... hotter." 

Granger sighed. "I don't know why I put up with this." 

But she was smiling. 

The next day it wasn't cold. In fact, the weather was perfect for playing Quidditch, which was a good sign. Of course, the Ravenclaw team was probably thinking exactly the same thing... but then again, _they_ were going to _lose_. 

They had to. 

So of course they would. 

Wouldn't they? 

Draco shook his head to clear it of these unsettling thoughts as he strode onto the pitch. He shook hands with the Ravenclaw captain, squeezing rather too hard, as was the Slytherin custom. Then the Quaffle was released and they took off. 

Draco immediately soared up past the others and made a round of the pitch, scouring it for the Snitch. Alas, it was already nowhere to be seen. Draco took up a stationary position above the pitch a few yards away from the Ravenclaw Seeker, Cho Chang. She had obviously not spotted the Snitch yet either. 

Beneath them, the match was already raging viciously, as first Rona, Slytherin's only female team member, had the Quaffle, then lost it to a Ravenclaw Chaser, who was hit by a Bludger from Joshua and dropped it straight into Fallon's waiting hands. 

Draco smiled. Things were looking good. 

"Slytherin scores!" the Gryffindor seventh-year whose name Draco didn't care to remember shouted a moment later. Fallon swooped up on his broom and punched the air triumphantly. 

Then a Bludger hit him in the side of the head. 

"No!" Draco shouted, as Fallon first wobbled, and then ever so slowly began to fall. 

Furiously, Draco gripped his broom tightly and hurtled towards the ground, calling for a time-out just before he reached it. His arms were jarred by the rough landing and he had to resist the urge to cry out in pain as he ran towards Fallon, the rest of the Slytherin team following a moment later. 

Fallon was out cold. 

"Damn!" Draco viciously kicked the pole Fallon had landed next to. "Bloody, bloody hell!" 

Rona looked at Fallon and cringed. "Now what? Fallon's our best player!" 

"I know that, you dimwit!" 

"We're doomed," Edmund said glumly. 

"No we bloody well are not! We are _not_ going to lose the Quidditch Cup to Gryffindor! Not this year!" Draco forced himself to calm down a little. "We'll just have to carry on without him. We can do it. You just keep the Ravenclaws from scoring too many points before I find the Snitch and we'll still win." 

"Draco, do you really think-" 

"Yes, Joshua, I bloody well do! Now come on, we have a match to win." 

Fuming with anger and determination, Draco mounted his broom and kicked off. The others soon followed and the match was resumed. 

But the absence of Fallon was sorely felt. Rona and Edmund had a hard enough time getting the Quaffle away from their opponents at all; getting it all the way to the other end of the pitch and through one of the hoops seemed practically impossible. 

"170-30 TO RAVENCLAW!" the annoying Gryffindor shouted enthusiastically. 

Draco scrutinized the pitch desperately for any sign of the Snitch. If Ravenclaw scored even _once_ more it wouldn't matter if he caught it; Slytherin still wouldn't win, and they _needed to win_, for Merlin's sake!" 

No sign of it, no sign of it... 

Draco flew to Ravenclaw's end of the pitch and back again, but he still couldn't find it _anywhere_! He _had_ to, he had to he had too... 

A strangled squeal made him look down just in time to see his Keeper careening off to the side after having been hit by a Bludger. One of the Ravenclaw Chasers was rushing towards the goal hoops, Quaffle in hand, while her fellow Ravenclaws prevented Draco's Chasers from following. 

Oh no. Nonononono... 

Without thinking, Draco swooped down in front of the hoops just as the Chaser threw the ball. It hit him right where the spear had been plunged into his shoulder and he cried out in pain and squeezed his eyes shut, only opening them again for fear of crashing into a goal pole. 

And there it was. 

The Snitch was about 30 feet away, directly beneath him. 

With a whoop of joy, Draco held onto his broom with all his might, accelerated downwards and caught the Snitch with his good hand. 

The fact that the acceleration caused his _other _arm to hurt so much that he instinctively let go and fell to the ground from quite a height didn't bother him much at all. 

With an immense feeling of satisfaction at Gryffindor Announcer Boy's "NO! HE CAN'T HAVE, THE ROTTEN BASTARD! _NO!_", Draco lay there and waited for his Slytherins to come and carry him home. 

_No lapsing in athletic areas despite agonizing injury... check._

* * *

**Author's Note:** Hope you enjoyed that chapter, though there isn't really that much plot in it. Several little things that will be important later, though. 

I'm afraid it's going to take me a while to post the next chapter (yes, even longer than it's taken me to post _this_ one). I'm entering a competition for one-act plays, and the deadline is at the end of Februrary next year, which is not actually that far away. I don't have that much free time anyway, so until then this play is pretty much all I'm going to be writing, except probably a very short ficlet now and then (something like "False Idyl" or my Firefly ficlets which can be done in a matter of hours). However, rest assured that I _will_ finish this fic, not only because I've spent so much time mapping it out (sometimes in minute detail), but because I'm completely obsessive about these things. Trust me, it'll bug me for _years_ if I don't. 

In the meantime, visit my Draco/Hermione website for more D/Hr fanfic and read my Firefly ficlets and the assorted other stories on my profile for more Jade II. 

Thanks for all the great reviews you all have left me, even _more_ thanks to the various people who have put me on their favorites lists, and remember, You Will See Me Again! 


	16. Chapter 16

"Ah!" 

Draco hissed in pain. He had _not_ expected the fire to flare up when he dropped the dragon scale in and now, well... _ouch_. 

He seemed to be continually injuring himself to make sure this spell would work perfectly. If it _did_ actually work perfectly. Draco imagined the Dark Lord walking through the grounds, wand raised, all ready to blow the castle to smithereens... and then it didn't. And then a lot of pain worse than Draco could even imagine -- and he could imagine quite a bit of pain -- would befall him. Him. Not Pansy, not Blaise, _him_. Because he was a Malfoy, and that meant he should be the best, and because he was the best it would be his fault and his fault alone if something went wrong. Blaise and Pansy would get off with a _Crucio_ or two. He, Draco, would get unbearable agony for a very long period of time. 

He really, _really_ didn't want that. 

So he was doing his best to ensure that it didn't happen. 

He had done the chant and the dragon scale, now all he had to do was the blood. 

Wondering what would be the best way to explain his injuries away to Granger, he sighed, picked up the knife, and carefully slid it over his palm. He grabbed his wand as he made a fist over the fire to squeeze the blood out, tapped the stone fireplace three times and whispered "_Infirmo_." 

Then he shook his hand and wrapped it in the bandage he had laid ready earlier. Making sure there was no trace of what he had just been doing left in the common room, he grabbed his things and headed back to his dormitory. 

Granger was still fast asleep in his bed. 

He wasn't quite sure what had possessed him to let her come down here. He was the only one currently inhabiting the room because the others had gone to Malfoy Manor to practise the Unforgivable Curses some more over Easter. In fact, he was the only Slytherin to be staying over the holidays at all, apart from a pair of second-year twins and Joshua Fizzlewinch. But he hadn't invited Granger because he was lonely, because Malfoys didn't get lonely. Especially Draco, who often found himself _longing_ for solitude. 

Anyway, he hadn't really _invited_ her... it had just sort of happened. And he _had_ put a Blinding Charm _and_ a Muffling Charm on her and carried her down here so she wouldn't know where the Slytherin common room was or what the password was. 

But still... her presence was causing him problems at the moment. What if she woke up just as he was cleaning his bloody knife? When he was hiding the rest of the dragon scales in the chest? What would he _say_ if she woke up before he had time to put the healing ointment on the cut? And what about the burn? He couldn't fix that with the ointment, it was only for cuts... 

_But_... she was lying there, asleep in _his bed_, and all he wanted to do right now was to lie down next to her and go back to sleep. 

Well, he reasoned, he _was_ tired, and sleep was certainly the best cure for that... 

He got into bed, and the next thing he knew the sun was up and Granger was gone. There was a dent in the pillow where her head had been, and next to the dent was a scrap of parchment with something written on it. 

_Gone to have breakfast. Didn't think it would be prudent to let people see us entering the Great Hall together. See you in the Prefects' bathroom after supper?_

_Hermione_

Gone to have breakfast. Draco glanced at the clock on the wall to see wha-- ten-thirty! Granger was right about them being seen together, of course, but she could have woken him! _Ten-thirty_! Now he wouldn't be able to get anything decent to eat until lunch... why did she have to sneak out without tellin-- 

She had snuck out. By herself. Through the secret entrance that he had gone to such lengths to hide from her the night before. 

Well. What a lovely start to the day. 

Sighing, Draco got out of bed, dressed, headed down to the common room and threw Granger's note in the fire. Then he sat down in his favourite armchair and opened the book that Granger had lent him. Well, forced him to-- no, Malfoys were never forced into anything... Coerced! _Coerced_ him into reading. Apparently he simply _had_ to read it so that she could prove to him that Muggle books could actually be _good_ and he could prove to her that he could speak French. Why he couldn't prove this to her by _speaking_, he didn't know. 

It was called _Les Liaisons dangereuses_ and had been written in the 18th century. Draco was doing his best not to like it, but he was finding it increasingly difficult. He almost decided to skip lunch so that he could finish it, but that would have proven that he didn't hate it. Besides, if he didn't eat something he might starve to death, and that wasn't something he was very keen on doing right now. 

Only about 20 students had decided to stay at Hogwarts this Easter, so the Great Hall was practically empty when Draco arrived. He sat down at the Slytherin table and scowled at a Hufflepuff first-year sitting all by herself. He saw Granger give him a reproachful look from across the hall so he winked at her semi-maliciously. He wondered idly what he could do with her in the Prefects' bathroom tonight... 

"Hi Draco!" said a cheerful voice, and Draco found himself being jostled violently as Joshua Fizzlewinch sat down next to him, apparently trying to get as close to Draco as possible. 

He sighed inwardly. 

"Hello, Joshua," Draco said coolly. 

"Why weren't you at breakfast?" Joshua asked, somehow managing to talk while stuffing a cheese sandwich in his mouth at tremendous speed. 

"I'm on holiday, Joshua. I think I'm allowed to have a lie-in now and then." 

"I suppose so... it was a bit boring without you, that's all. Are you going to be practising Quidditch later?" 

"Maybe." 

"Great! It's so much more fun when you're not alone. I can beat the Bludgers at you, and you can dodge them and it'll be good practise for both of us!" 

Draco groaned. "Fine, whatever." 

"Shall we go down to the pitch when we've finished eating?" 

"_No._" 

"Yeah, I suppose you're right... it's not good to exercise that much right after a big meal. Two o'clock?" 

"Maybe." 

"Cool, I'll see you then, then!" 

Joshua got up and hurried away, and Draco breathed a sigh of relief. Beater Boy had really been getting on his nerves since the holidays had begun and he had been left without anyone his own age; he had taken to following Draco around and acting like they were best friends. 

Draco did not _have_ best friends. They were far more trouble than they were worth, in his opinion, Granger's suicide attempt being a good example of this. 

She seemed to be fine now, though, Draco thought as he saw her get up and walk away with Potter and Weasley in tow. She didn't even glance in his direction. 

She wasn't bad at this whole "secrecy" thing... 

Finishing his own lunch, Draco got up and returned to the Slytherin common room, where there was thankfully no sign of Joshua. He managed to finish the book and was very happy to find that, after having read the end, he could almost truthfully say that he had hated it. 

He couldn't wait to tell Granger. 

But first came the tedious business of practising Quidditch with Joshua, who babbled incessantly even while hitting Bludgers. Draco found himself wishing that _he_ was the Beater so that he could "accidentally" knock Joshua unconscious and consequently be rid of him for at least a few hours. 

Sadly, Draco did actually _need_ Joshua to train if Slytherin was to win the Quidditch Cup. And Draco was pretty sure that Joshua would do best with his help. 

He was just _so irritating_. 

In the end Draco just let himself be hit by a Bludger so that he could play up the pain and escape. Unfortunately this had the undesired effect of making Joshua insist on taking Draco up to the hospital wing, where Madam Pomfrey saw (and healed) Draco's burnt hand. She didn't ask how he had done it, but she did look at him in an awfully strange way... and every trip to the hospital wing would increase people's suspicions and might even lead to the discovery of the spell... 

That would be _bad_. 

Still, Draco thought the secret was safe for now. Maybe he should tell Joshua about the spell, though, just to prevent this kind of unessential hospital visit... the trouble was that he wasn't sure he _trusted_ Joshua... and anyway, it was better to keep the spell secret from as many people as possible, even his fellow Slytherins. 

He managed to grab a bite of supper and lose Joshua by telling him that he was going to have a bath, which wasn't even really a lie. 

Granger wasn't there yet when he reached the Prefect's bathroom, so Draco set about running a bath, scalding hot and with no bubbles or oils or funny smells. He managed to freeze Moaning Myrtle in place as she stuck her head out of a tap, then he proceeded to remove his clothes. He had just submerged himself in the blissfully hot water and was having fun poking his fingers through Moaning Myrtle's eyes when Granger arrived. 

"Malfoy! What are you doing to poor Myrtle?!" were the first words out of her mouth. This was a blow to Draco's slowly returning good mood. 

"Nothing," he sighed, turning to face her. 

Granger looked scandalised. "You shouldn't do things like that," she told him, rather coldly. 

Draco grinned and moved towards her through the water. 

"I think I'll have to take five points from Slytherin," she declared. 

"What?!" Draco exclaimed, coming to an abrupt halt. 

"Well, you can't expect me to neglect my prefect duties just because of... _this_," she said, waving her arms about vaguely. 

"Oh yes I _can_," said Draco. "And what's more, I expect you to meet my expectations." 

Granger snorted. "_Really_." She stepped closer to the edge of the water, looking down at him as if to taunt him. 

"_Oh_ yes." Draco swam towards her as she approached. 

"Well, Malfoy," she said, practically stepping on his fingers now that that had both reached the edge. "You can _stuff_ your expec--" 

And Draco tugged on her robes and pulled her into the water. 

"I expected that to rile you up," he said, when the surprised shriek and ensuing splashing noise had subsided. 

Granger looked at him. "Well," she said, slightly out of breath from the shock, "I expected you to do something like this when I said I'd take those points. That's... sort of why I did it," she admitted, grinning. 

"I expected it might be something like that," Draco said, returning the grin. "How very interesting." 

"Mmm." Granger nodded. 

"I expect all those heavy wet clothes are rather uncomfortable." 

"I expect you would be willing to help me get them off." 

"Indeed..." 

Later, when they were lounging against the side of the bath and had regained the ability to think rationally, Granger asked him about the book. 

"Hated it," he said smugly, absentmindedly squeezing some of her wet hair between his thumb and forefinger. 

She narrowed her eyes. "And what exactly was wrong with it?" 

"The hero died in a duel with someone who was clearly inferior to him, for no sane reason at all, and the heroine was ostracised from society, again for no sane reason at all! Come on, Granger, you can't tell me you weren't disappointed by the ending." 

"Valmont isn't a _hero_, Malfoy, and the Marquise de Merteuil certainly isn't a heroine. And the ending makes _perfect_ sense! Valmont learns the true value of love and is willing to die for it, and the Marquise finally gets what's coming to her for being such an evil, manipulative monster." 

"Anyone who is willing to die for _love_, of all things, is insane, Granger. And the Marquise obviously wasn't _evil_. Slightly wicked, certainly... but I happen to think, Granger, that you don't truly comprehend the real meaning of the word 'evil'. And what's so bad about being wicked and manipulative, anyway?" 

"Malfoy, 'bad' is pretty much the definition of the word 'wicked'! As to the meaning of 'evil'... I think I understand more than you know." 

"Well, I think we'll have to disagree on that," Draco said. 

Granger contemplated him, eyes still narrowed. "All right," she said after a moment. She leaned over his shoulder to reach one of the taps behind him. 

"Don't!" Draco cried, grabbing her hand before she could turn the tap and release a bunch of sickly smelling purple bubbles into his precious, _plain_ bath. "Those bubbles are _evil_," he said at her surprised expression. 

"In the true meaning of the word?" she asked, smiling in an amused sort of way. 

"The truest meaning there is," he replied, trying to sound deadly serious but only managing "quite harmfully" serious. He compensated for this by kissing her, which resulted in a series of kissing-related activities which in turn caused him to arrive back in the common room quite late... 

It was empty when he entered, quickly making his way to his dormitory to get some herbs that he had to throw on the fire for the spell. Then Draco went to bed, exhausted, and didn't wake up until lunch time the next day. _Again_. 

He pulled on some clothes and hurried up to the Great Hall as quickly as he could without running, only to find that there was no one there. Slightly puzzled at this, he turned around and walked back into the Entrance Hall, where he noticed for the first time that the doors were wide open. He stepped out and looked around; there appeared to be some kind of commotion by the lake, so he headed down there. As he drew closer he saw Granger among the other people milling about and looking at whatever it was. Weasley had his arm around her shoulders, and Draco felt a slight twinge in his stomach akin to the one he got when people borrowed his _Quidditch Throughout the Ages_ without permission... 

Then someone moved, and Draco saw what they were staring at. 

The giant squid was lying on the thin strip of sand by the lake, apparently quite dead. There were a few spears stuck in it, obviously belonging to the merpeople, but the thing that Draco's attention was immediately drawn to was the large, red, _infected_ wound above one of its tentacles, right where Draco had cut it a few weeks ago. 

The only coherent thought he could form was _Oh, dear..._   
  


**Author's Note:** Annnnnnd I'm back! About time too, if I say so myself. This was _not_ the best chapter to start with after such a long time away, let me tell you... I hope you like it, though! I know things aren't coming along very quickly, but, well, they aren't really going to; I decided that a long time ago. Complain about it all you like, but I'm not changing it... sorry if that sounds bad, but I have a very exact plan for this fic and I intend to stick to it. Doesn't mean that things aren't going to _happen_, though... 

See you soon, and thanks for reading! :) 

(Told you I'd be back, didn't I!) 


	17. Chapter 17

Draco sat cross-legged on his bed, nervously drumming his fingers on his knees. He stopped as soon as he noticed this, of course, but still, he shouldn't have been doing it at all. 

He was extremely unsettled by the discovery of the dead squid, even more so because he had no idea what to do about it. It had been a week and his father hadn't contacted him to tell him what to do, even though he surely knew about the incident by now -- all the little first-years would surely have written to their parents to tell them about the oh-so-exciting "diant dead 'quid". 

Draco's stomach felt like it had decided to fulfil a lifelong ambition to become a bludger, and was flying around inside him extra viciously to make up for lost time. 

This _shouldn't have happened!_ The "giant squid" part of the spell was supposed to be over and done with, he was supposed to be able to forget about it now, even the wound in his shoulder was hardly noticeable anymore... Why did it have to go and _die_, of all things?! It wasn't supposed to do that! No one had ever said anything about the squid being all beached and dead and real, hard, _immediate_ evidence of what was supposed to be a secret, _secret_ spell! 

The others were coming back today. Hopefully they would be bringing a message from his father with them. After all, he couldn't just leave Draco to fend for himself in a situation like this, could he? 

Right? 

His fingers were drumming again. He sat on them to make them stop and wondered when the others would get here. 

He had wanted to wait for them in the common room, but had decided against it in case it gave away his impatience. Better to pretend not to care, be absorbed in this book when they came... 

He realized that he had knocked the book off the bed when he had sat on his hands. He retrieved it, reopened it and stared at it resolutely. 

Never appear nervous when dealing with people who are inferior to you. Draco had learned that lesson from his father a long time ago. 

He had had a hard time not letting Granger notice his disquietude. He was sure she had noticed that something was going on -- she had been acting slightly strangely around him lately. He just hoped that she wouldn't work out what it was; after all, she had seen the wound in his shoulder, which had probably borne an uncanny resemblance to the spear wounds on the dead squid. He had _known_ that he shouldn't have let her see his injury! But no, she had _had_ to make it absolutely _impossible_ for him to say no... Stupid Granger with her stupid sensitiv-- 

"Hello Draco!" said Blaise brightly. 

Draco jumped. Only very slightly, and Blaise didn't seem to notice, but... he jumped. 

_Crap._

"Hello, Blaise," Draco replied, doing his best to sound normal. 

"So, how were your holidays?" Blaise asked, dumping his bags on his bed and leaping on after them. 

"Fine," Draco said. "Yours?" 

"Exhausting. Your dad's not very cheerful, is he?" 

Draco bristled. "Don't you dare insult my father." 

"I wasn't--" Blaise said, rather surprised, but then cut himself off mid-sentence. "He gave me instructions for the next part of the spell," he said instead, taking a piece of parchment from a pocket and tossing it over to Draco. 

Draco took it and opened it carefully. It read: 

_Ingredients:_   
_Blood of a virgin_   
_Distilled alcohol (any type)_   
_Tears wept by a male_

_Instructions:_   
_Add thirteen drops of blood to the fire at the rate of one per second, immediately followed by thirteen of alcohol and thirteen tears at the same rate. First drop Tuesday, 3 o'clock am._

_Do not talk about or go within one hundred yards of the squid carcass unless not to do so would arouse suspicion._

_Further instructions shall be given to Draco Malfoy next Hogsmeade weekend, 1:30pm, Hog's Head._

What?! "Don't talk about it or go near it"?! That was _it?_

_But, but but--_

Blaise was looking at him expectantly. 

"I see," Draco said neutrally. 

"He gave me a potion that makes you cry," Blaise informed him. "And it'll be easy to swipe some cooking brandy from the kitchens. The blood is the only tricky part." 

"Right. Well... we'll discuss it with Pansy later. I've got to get some Quidditch practise in before it gets dark." Draco stood up abruptly, grabbed his broom and swept out of the room without another glance at Blaise. 

_That's **it**?!_ Draco thought again as he walked through the hallways full of chattering students returning after the holidays. 

He had expected... well, he wasn't sure exactly what he had expected, but his father should have come up with some kind of plan to plant people's suspicions elsewhere, it shouldn't have just been "act normal". That was just too passive. Draco's father wasn't a passive man, he was a secretive, _subversive_ man who always had an answer to everything... 

He stepped through the doors and began to make his way to the Quidditch pitch. 

_Damn!_

He had to calm down, he thought as he drew closer. If doing nothing was what his father wanted him to do, it was obviously the best course of act-- 

"Hey Malfoy, what do you think you're doing here?!" 

Draco looked up to see the whole Gryffindor Quidditch team circling above him on their brooms, glaring at him. Potter was the apparent source of the question, if one could call it that. 

Draco had forgotten to see if anyone else had booked the pitch tonight, he realized, staring at the entrance a few feet in front of him. And Potter had spotted him and decided to come and jeer at him. 

Well, that was _just_ what he needed right now... _not_. 

Draco turned around and left without a word, narrowly avoiding a bludger which had been sent flying in his direction. 

_Bloody Gryffindors_, he thought, and began to stalk back up in the direction of the castle. 

Now what? He couldn't very well return to the common room; he would have to admit to Blaise that he had forgotten to book the pitch. Granger was probably in the Gryffindor common room catching up with whoever had been away over the holidays, so he wasn't likely to have much luck if he went looking for her. He couldn't go and do his homework in the Great Hall because he didn't have it with him... but he _could_ go to the library. 

Yes. That would do. There were certainly worse places to spend an hour or so, after all. 

Having made up his mind, Draco walked into the Entrance Hall purposefully and swiftly headed towards the library, where he peered through the door and, having made sure that Madam Pince wasn't visible to admonish him for bringing his broomstick near the books, found a table in a secluded corner and deposited said broomstick underneath it. 

Now, what to read...? 

He supposed he should start trying to work out how to get the blood of a virgin for the spell. They didn't need too much blood, which was a mercy; he didn't think it would have been a very good idea to actually _kill_ someone here in the school, not at this stage... still, they had to get it from somewhere, and somehow he doubted they would find a volunteer. And then there was the problem of knowing with absolute certainty that the person they chose actually _was_ a virgin; he supposed all the first-years would be, but he couldn't risk being wrong on this. They would have to find some kind of spell... 

Without much hope of finding anything, Draco walked towards the nearest shelf and began to look for something that might help. 

_Diseases of the Sheep._ Nope. 

He wandered over to the next aisle. 

_100 Simple Hangover Cures. _No, not right now... 

He looked at the shelves opposite. 

_The Firefly as a Magical Ingredient._ Well, you never knew... 

He lifted the book off the shelf and flicked through it. A firefly or two shouldn't be _too_ hard to procure if there happened to be a recipe in here... 

Light... fire... truth... itches... noise... 

No virgins. 

Oh well, it had been worth a try. He put the book back on the shelf and was about to go and look somewhere else when Granger came around the corner, a small pile of books under her arm, and crashed right into him, causing her books and bag to fall to the floor or, in the more unfortunate cases, on Draco's foot. 

"Drat," Granger said, reddening. "Um. Sorry." 

"Evening, Granger," Draco said, raising his eyebrows and looking down at his foot, which was now hurting rather a lot. Granger quickly bent down, gathered the books up and put them in her bag before he could see what they were. 

"What are you doing here?" she asked, using her hand to shield the books poking out of the top of the bag from Draco's view. 

"Homework, what are you doing here?" he answered quickly. Her secretive behaviour had perked his curiosity. 

"Er... me too. I'm very busy, actually, so, if you don't mind..." She inclined her head and Draco stepped back to let her walk past. "I'll see you tomorrow," she told him, touching his arm briefly. He took this opportunity to sneak a peak at her bag; _Common Ailments: Sym _was all he could read before she hurried away. 

Interesting. Was Granger ill? Maybe Weasley or Potter? Ooh, he hoped it was Potter... with something really horrible and/or embarrassing. Syphilis, perhaps. That would be _fun_... 

But right now he had other things to think about. 

He searched for over an hour and eventually found exactly what he was looking for in an old book entitled _Keeping Up Appearances: How to Gain and Keep Respect_. Apparently once upon a time someone had invented a spell for fathers and prospective fathers-in-law to use to make sure a maiden's virtue was intact before she was married off. 

Not quite the purpose Draco was planning on using it for, but it would work well enough. 

He copied out the pertinent details (somehow he didn't think it would improve Madam Pince's opinion of him if he checked out a book like this) and returned to the common room, where he, Blaise and Pansy whiled away the time before everyone had gone to bed by eating the cake Draco had been sent from home and enjoying everyone else's jealous stares. 

Finally, the common room was empty, and Draco told them of the spell he'd found. 

"It's a simple charm. Just point your wand at someone, say "_Declaro Virgo_" and the wand tip will glow white if they're a virgin, red if they're not." 

"And you're sure this works?" Blaise asked, even though he was clearly impressed. 

_Well, no, but..._

Draco grinned and pointed his wand at Pansy. "_Declaro Virgo_", he said, and an angry red glow from his wand lit up Pansy's face. "Yes, I would say it works." 

Pansy blushed, though Draco couldn't for the life of him work out why someone so renowned for her promiscuity would do so. 

"So whose blood should we get?" she asked. "I mean, there's got to be hundreds of virgins here, right?" 

"I say McGonagall," said Blaise enthusiastically. 

"Don't be stupid," Draco said, though the thought of it did give him a peculiar sense of satisfaction. "She's probably not a virgin, and even if she was, she's a _teacher_! Can you think of someone it would be more stupid to attack?" 

"Harry Potter?" Pansy suggested. 

Draco allowed himself a moment to grin at the thought. "Ohh, that would be fun..." he mused before forcing himself to focus. "But seriously, I think it should be one of the younger students. It'll be easier to find a virgin amongst them and there's less chance of them being able to fight us off." 

"That makes sense," said Blaise, nodding. "Also, I think it should be someone from Ravenclaw or Hufflepuff. Someone's going to find out that whoever-it-is has been attacked, even if we heal the cut afterwards. Memory charms won't help, because we'll have to leave the victim Stunned or Petrified. If the victim's from Slytherin or Gryffindor us Slytherins will automatically be the suspects; at least with Ravenclaw or Hufflepuff the suspicion will be more evenly distributed over the entire school." 

Draco nodded. "All right. Well, now all we have to do is find ourselves a virgin. Pansy, I think you should creep up on someone in the girls' toilets, secretly do the charm, and if the girl's a virgin and the two of you are alone, just Stun her and get the blood. The instructions don't specify that it has to be a female virgin, but I think we're better safe than sorry. I'll give you a knife before breakfast tomorrow. Blaise, you find a small bottle or something to put it in." 

"I don't know, Draco..." Pansy said, uncertainly. "It seems a bit... risky." 

Draco sighed. "Pansy, if you can think of a better way, please tell me. Otherwise, go to bed." 

Pansy was silent for a moment, opened her mouth and closed it again twice, and finally left without saying a word. 

Blaise nodded to show his approval of the plan. Then he followed Draco back to the dormitories. 


	18. Chapter 18

"You can't strap it _there_!" Pansy cried. 

"Why on earth not?" Draco tightened the strap. "The inner thigh is the absolute _best_ place to hide a weapon when you're wearing robes." 

"But what if someone notices?" 

"I think you can manage not to spread your legs for _one day_, Pansy." 

"But--" 

"Now let's go, or we'll be late for breakfast. We don't want to start the day by standing out, do we?" 

Pansy looked down. "I suppose not." 

"Okay then. Here we go." 

They walked out of the bathroom where they had been hiding and headed through the rapidly emptying common room, up the stairs and into the Great Hall. 

Draco glanced over at the Gryffindor table to see if he could catch a glimpse of Granger, but Potter and Weasley were there alone, talking with Weasley's sister. 

Draco shrugged mentally and turned back to Pansy, who sat down and rearranged her robes gingerly. "Act _normal_," he hissed in her ear. This made her jump, and Draco sighed and put his head in his hands. 

He just hoped she would get a grip before she actually had to _do_ anything. 

She seemed to calm down after having eaten something, so Draco felt confident enough in leaving her to her own devices when he left to go to his Transfiguration lesson. Pansy was fairly competent if she didn't let herself get flustered; he only hoped that she herself had realised this by now. 

Granger turned up in Transfiguration five minutes late and couldn't explain her tardiness to McGonagall, for she which she received a stern reprimand but didn't lose any points, which Draco thought was monumentally unfair. He also thought it rather out of character for Granger to oversleep, but then he reasoned that she must have been dreaming about him, and had not been able to bring herself to wake up. 

He grinned at the thought. 

After the lesson was over Draco was about to go and see if he could find out how Pansy was getting along when Granger grabbed him by the sleeve and pulled him back into the now empty classroom. 

"You're free right now, aren't you?" she asked quietly. 

Draco nodded slowly. "Most of the others have got Care of Magical Creatures." 

"Will you come to the Room of Requirement with me?" 

"Hmm... well, all right." He probably wouldn't be able to find Pansy anyway, if she was doing her job properly, he reasoned. Granger would be a welcome distraction. 

She nodded. "Okay," she said distractedly, taking his hand. They looked out into the corridor to see if anyone was coming, and then snuck off in the direction of the nearest staircase. 

However, before they could reach it, they heard voices coming from an adjoining corridor. They both froze and looked at each other, listening. 

"Would you care to tell me what it is that you are hiding behind your back, Miss Parkinson?" said the stern voice of McGonagall. 

"But, I mean, I just... Professor..." Pansy, stammering like a fool. 

Draco was sure he felt his heart skip a beat. _Oh, **please** no..._

There was an agonizingly long pause before McGonagall said, in an extremely cold tone of voice, "And what exactly are you carrying a weapon like this around for, Miss Parkinson?" 

_Bloody, **fucking **hell!_

"I, I-I..." 

"I think you had better come with me." 

Pansy whimpered, there was the sound of footsteps, and they were gone. 

Granger was staring at him, wide-eyed. 

"Erm... I've got to go. I forgot something..." Draco said, rather feebly, and ran for the nearest staircase, leaving a bewildered Granger behind without a second thought. 

Why did nothing _ever_ go right?! He thought, practically falling back into the Slytherin dungeons. Why couldn't he just trust other people to _do what they were told_, for once?! 

He was going to have to do some serious damage control. And someone else would have to get the blood now. _He_ would have to do it, since it seemed that he was the only one who could be depended on... 

He would have to come up with a whole new plan at very, _very_ short notice, and execute it before 3 o'clock tonight, and it would have to work because there would be _no second chances_... 

Fuck. 

Okay, so... first step was to find a virgin. 

He couldn't just hide in the girls' toilets like he had told Pansy to do... he wasn't a girl, for one thing, something he had never had cause to regret until now... No, he needed to find some other way. Some way to perform the spell potentially dozens of times before he actually found a suitable victim, without anyone noticing, and _then_ to somehow get her somewhere, _alone_, where he could Stun her and steal thirteen drops of her blood. 

Fine. Okay. He could do this. It was doable. 

Okay... 

At lunch time he wove himself into the middle of the crowd piling into the Great Hall and pointed his wand at the feet of the nearest female student. Then, hoping against hope that no one would notice what he was doing, he whispered, "_Declaro Virgo!_" 

The tip of his wand glowed red. 

_Right. Don't panic, just try again..._

He pointed his wand at a different girl and said the words again. 

Again, the wand tip glowed red. 

Draco began to wonder if the spell really worked. After all, he had never actually _seen_ it glow white... what if it never did? 

He pushed these thoughts to the back of his mind, took a deep breath, and pointed his wand at a Hufflepuff on his right. 

"_Declaro Virgo!_" 

The wand tip glowed white. 

Draco grinned. 

He kept a close eye on the girl as he moved to sit down at the Slytherin table. She was around twelve years old and had a long, brown plait and blue eyes that seemed to bulge out of her face slightly more than they should. She also had a small nose that was covered in freckles. And she was in Hufflepuff, as evidenced by her clothes and the fact hat she had just sat down at the Hufflepuff table. 

When he felt confident that he would recognize her later, he grabbed a cheese sandwich and looked around his own table. 

Pansy wasn't there. 

For the first time, he wondered what would happen to her. She wouldn't tell anyone about the spell, he was sure of that -- not even Pansy was _that_ much of a coward. 

Maybe she would be expelled. That might cause a few complications, but he didn't think it would be anything that couldn't be sorted out. 

So, as long as he got some of this girl's blood before 3 o'clock in the morning, everything should be fine. 

Good. 

When Draco got back to his dormitory one of the school owls was waiting for him, hopping around impatiently. Draco untied the letter from its legs and gave it a few cake crumbs to eat. 

The letter read: 

_Malfoy,_

_Meet me in the owlery before breakfast tomorrow?_

_Hermione_

Draco considered this for a moment and decided that he wouldn't have anything better to do. He wouldn't be able to get to sleep tonight even if everything went well, but he would be too tired to do anything useful... 

He wrote "all right" underneath Granger's message, sent the owl back, and packed his books for Potions. 

When he got to the dungeons most of the other students were already there, including Pansy, as he was glad to see. Granger and Potter were deep in discussion at the back of the classroom. Draco walked past them without so much as a sneer and sat down next to Pansy. 

"What happened?" he asked quietly. 

"Oh Draco, I'm so sorry! I was just looking out of the door to the toilets to see if anyone was coming, and McGonagall was right there in front of me! I didn't know what to do!" 

Draco had the urge to call Pansy all kinds of insulting things, but he fought it back. Instead, he asked: "So, then what happened? What did you tell her?" 

"Nothing! I just kept my mouth shut. No excuse I could have come up with would've been believable, so..." 

"So she doesn't know anything." 

"No. I got a month's worth of detention, though, which--" 

"Mr Potter, Miss Granger, twenty points from Gryffindor for talking in class!" 

Draco very nearly jumped when he heard Snape's voice. He hadn't realised that the lesson had started. 

He and Pansy quickly shut up and faced the front. 

After the double lesson Draco discovered that there hadn't really been anything else for the two of them to talk about anyway, and he, Pansy and Blaise found a secluded corner of the school grounds to discuss the situation in. 

"I've got it all planned out," Draco told them. "Just leave the blood part to me. Blaise, you have to get the alcohol and the tears. Pansy, you'll be serving detention, just like they want you to. We'll all meet in the common room at quarter to three tonight. Understand?" 

He said this rather menacingly, and the two others just nodded mutely. 

"I take it they confiscated the knife?" Draco said to Pansy. 

"Yes. Sorry." 

"It doesn't matter, I've got another one. Right." He looked at them both. "Any questions?" 

"No." 

"No, Draco." 

"Excellent." 

They went their separate ways to prepare for the evening and then returned to the Great Hall for supper, after which Pansy went off to do her detention, Blaise went down to the kitchens to find some brandy, and Draco himself commenced the task of following his designated Hufflepuff without letting himself be noticed. 

She left the Great Hall with three other girls, with Draco not far behind. They all chattered away to each other as they descended the stairs, not even glancing in Draco's direction. He kept to the side of the staircase and acted as inconspicuously as possible, so that he was ignored by the other Hufflepuffs who passed him. Then, at the bottom of the staircase, he slipped into a convenient alcove he had found and soundproofed earlier. He peered out and saw his intended victim walking along the corridor a short distance away. 

He pointed his wand at her. 

"_Imperio!_" he said loudly and clearly. 

The girl stopped talking, and continued walking with a dreamy smile on her face. 

_Now... tell them you've remembered that you've left something in the library... you'll have to go and get it. They can go on without you._

He could see the girl talking distractedly. 

_Go to the library._

The girl turned around and walked back the way she had come; Draco followed a moment later. He stopped when he reached the nearest boys' toilets, checked they were empty, and told the girl to close her eyes and come in. 

"Forward two steps. Now turn left. Forward four steps," he commanded. 

Draco followed her into the cubicle she had just entered and locked the door. "_Petrificus Totalus!_" he cried, and she went rigid and began to fall forward. Draco caught her and propped her up against the wall before lifting the Imperius curse. 

Draco reached for the knife he had strapped to his leg and removed a small glass bottle from his pocket. He unscrewed the lid and then, taking a deep breath, uncovered the girl's arm and cut into it. 

Nothing happened. 

Draco cursed under his breath and cut deeper. 

Still nothing. 

Could the _Petrificus Totalus_ have interfered with her normal blood flow that much? 

He began to fear that it could. 

He would have to reverse it and put her under Imperio again... which was bad because that way she would remember that she had been cut... 

And then, ever so slowly, a drop of blood began to form at the edge of the cut. 

Draco breathed a sigh of relief and held the bottle underneath. 

It took an excruciatingly long time, during which two people came in, used the toilets and left again, but finally Draco thought the bottle was full enough. 

He screwed the top back on, rubbed some ointment on the cut to heal it, made sure the bottle and the knife weren't visible, and checked the corridor for people. Satisfied that no one was around, he levitated the girl's rigid form out of the toilet cubicle and down the hallway and deposited her in a broom cupboard a few hundred yards away. 

Then he headed back down to the Slytherin common room. 

It was 9:30. 

Pansy wasn't back yet, but Draco ran into Blaise, who was about to go and hide in a bath while he made himself cry with the potion he had been given. 

"Did you get it?" he asked Draco in a low voice. 

"Yes." 

"Great. The brandy's in my trunk, under the pile of magazines." 

Draco nodded, and they parted. 

No one was in the dormitory when Draco got there, so he hid the bottle of blood next to the brandy and put the knife back in his own secret hiding place. Then he decided to try and get some sleep. 

He set an alarm for 2:40, removed his shoes, lay on his bed and closed his eyes. 

Sleep, however, was not very forthcoming. Draco drifted off a few times, but kept awakening after what seemed like only a few minutes, be it of his own accord of because someone, Crabbe and Goyle for instance, barged in at least twice, laughing like drunken trolls. 

Finally Draco managed to remain unconscious for a slightly longer period of time, only to be woken by his alarm. 

He blinked rapidly several times, put on his slippers and retrieved the bottle of blood before heading to the common room. Pansy was already there, and Blaise appeared shortly thereafter with his own two bottles. 

They went over the plan one more time, and then, as three o'clock drew nearer, each took a bottle and a pipette and stood by the fire. 

At three o'clock on the dot, Draco squeezed the first drop of blood from the pipette. He then added twelve more drops to the fire, each one second after the last, according to the pocket watch he had propped up on the mantelpiece. Then Pansy added the drops of brandy, and, finally, Blaise added the tears. 

It was done. 

There was a long silence while they digested this. 

Draco shrugged. "Piece of cake," he said happily, and sank into an armchair. 

He grabbed the book on the table next to him and read until six o'clock, which was usually the time Granger meant when she said "before breakfast", when he snuck out of the common room and went up to the owlery. 

Granger was already there when he arrived, leaning over the wall and looking down at the grounds. 

Draco crept up on her and put his arms around her waist. Her complete lack of surprise disappointed him slightly, but he said "Good morning" and rested his chin upon her shoulder for a moment. 

"'Morning," she replied, not moving. 

"You wanted me for something?" Draco asked, grinning. 

"Yes." She turned around and saw the look on Draco's face. "Not _that_," she said, rolling her eyes. 

"What then?" 

"I have to tell you something." 

"Go on then, spit it out." 

"Okay..." She nodded, slowly, more to herself than to him. "I... I can't see you anymore." 

"What?" Draco was genuinely bewildered. Where had _this_ come from? 

"I can't do... _this_ with you anymore." 

"Why on earth not?" 

She shook her head distractedly. "A lot of reasons." 

"Such as?" 

"I've been spending far too much with you and not nearly enough with my actual_ friends_, for one thing." 

"What, Potty and the Weasel? The ones whose behaviour caused you to try to commit suicide?" 

"It was a lot more complicated than that, and you know it. And yes, now I seem to be doing to them exactly what they were doing to me, and it's not right." 

"Why not? Seems fair to me." 

"Can't you display normal human emotions for one _minute_, Malfoy?" 

"Does it matter? Go on, what else? You've got to have better reasons than _that_." 

Draco had never been dumped before, he suddenly realised. That was probably why he was getting so involved in this discussion. 

Granger glared at him. "You're a bad influence on me. Since this started, whatever you or I may think 'this' is, I have broken no less than _twenty-seven_ school rules because of it. I want to be Head Girl next year, I can't have stuff like that coming back to haunt me." 

"You must break more rules than that every single year in your adventures with The Boy Who Shouldn't Have Lived, Granger. What else?" 

"Well... the giant squid being found dead. Pansy being caught with some kind of weapon yesterday. I _know_ it was Pansy, and not you, but... well, it just adds to the feeling that there's something... more _sinister_ about you than I can cope with right now. I shouldn't be with you, I've known that all along..." 

"And yet you haven't decided to put an end to it until now. So what's changed? What makes _now_ so special?" 

Granger sighed and was silent for a moment. Then she raised her head and looked him directly in the eye. 

"I'm pregnant," she said. 

Draco very suddenly found himself at a complete loss for words. 

Granger stared at him. 

He stared back, completely gobsmacked. 

Then Granger left, slamming the door behind her, and Draco was left alone to process this very difficult piece of information.   
  


* * *

**Author's Note:** I know, I know, it's the oldest cliché in the book... But I do have my reasons for this particular development. Reasons which I will reveal when I've finished the fic (which should be around chapter 36, according to my latest calculations). In the meantime... what did you think? 


	19. Chapter 19

Draco grabbed Granger before Arithmancy later that morning; a morning out of which, so far, he had spent two Defence Against the Dark Arts lessons trying to calm down enough to think rationally about what she had told him. 

He hadn't really managed the "calm" part. 

He gripped Granger's arm and pulled her around a corner with no more than a slight yelp on her part, so that they were out of sight of the rest of the pupils. 

"What do you mean, you're _pregnant_?!" he hissed. 

"I wasn't aware that there _were_ multiple meanings to the phrase," she said sarcastically. "In any case, my meaning was 'there is a baby growing inside of me'." 

"But, but... _how_?" 

Dammit. Draco had sworn to himself that he _would not ask_ that most stupid of all questions, the answer to which would surely be— 

"How do you _think_, Malfoy?" 

--_that._

"But it's not as if we weren't careful, I mean--" 

"You can be as careful as you want, Malfoy; sometimes these things can go wrong, even if you do everything right. It appears that they went wrong in a big way." 

"And you're sure it's mine?" 

"What do you take me for, Malfoy?" Granger asked, a disgusted expression on her face. 

"I take you for someone who is suspiciously chummy with such _male_ people as Potter and Weasley." 

"They're just friends, you imbecile." 

"And I'm not even that, yet look what goes on between us." 

"What _went_ on between us. I told you, I'm not seeing you anymore. Look..." Granger sighed. "If you want to talk about this in a _civilised_ manner, we can meet in the Room of Requirement after Charms this afternoon. Otherwise, you can shove off and never speak to me again. Now would you please let go of my arm; we'll be late." 

Draco released her reluctantly and she turned around and went into the classroom without a backwards glance. He followed a moment later and took up his seat near the rear, from which he could clearly see the back of Granger's head, along with the large amount of hair that came with it. 

He hated that hair. It tickled, and not usually in a pleasant way. 

If it was _wet,_ on the other hand, it went practically straight, and you could pick out strands of it and squeeze th— 

_No_. He was not going to think like that anymore. _Ever_. She had dumped him, after all, and he was _not_ going to pine after some Mudblood like her and oh my gosh she was _pregnant..._

Dammit. He had thought he was used to the idea by now, but it appeared not. Otherwise he probably wouldn't have just completely crushed the tip of his quill by smashing it into this piece of parchment. 

_Dammit._

Well, okay. _Calm._

_Pregnant!_

Draco found himself gripping his quill rather too tightly and made himself put it down. He flexed his fingers, making sure that Professor Vector wasn't looking at him as he did so. Then he tried again. 

_Calm. Pregnant._

_Pregnant._

_Pregnant._

_Whew. Okay._

Granger was pregnant. Had a baby growing inside of her. _His_ baby. 

He was going to be a father. 

He dug his fingernails into his palm and looked longingly at the oh-so-tightly-grippable quill. 

He tried his best to ignore Granger, who was now talking animatedly to the professor, and he looked at the blackboard. 

What exactly would being a father entail? He knew Granger was of the utterly insane opinion that one shouldn't let house elves do anything useful... so would he have to change its clothes? Would he have to change its _nappies_? He shuddered at the thought. Then he shuddered at the thought of babies in general, just because he thought it would annoy his arrogant not-girlfriend. Babies were just tiny, ugly, noisy, time-consuming stink-bombs, and she should just get rid of it. 

So there. 

He mentally stuck out his tongue at the back of Granger's head. 

For some reason she chose that moment to glance in his direction. 

He sneered, and tried his very best to concentrate on his work. 

At lunch he wasn't very hungry, and decided that it was all Granger's fault. He ate a small slice of plain toast and was getting up to leave when Dumbledore called for everyone's attention. 

Draco sat down again, warily. 

"I am sorry to interrupt your lunches," Dumbledore began. "But last night a very serious incident occurred that I must inform you of." 

Draco's head snapped up. He had a bad feeling that he knew all too well what this "serious incident" was. 

"Late yesterday evening a young student disappeared. Her friends reported it; a search ensued and she was soon found in a _broom cupboard_ on the ground floor. She told us that she had been made, against her will, to enter a toilet cubicle, where someone had performed the _Petrificus Totalus_ Charm on her. The effects of this spell were evident when she was found." Dumbledore looked around the Hall, eyes boring into the backs of each and every student's skull. "I trust that I do not have to tell any of you that a grave crime has been committed. As of yet, we do not know who the perpetrator or perpetrators were, so we ask everyone who has information that might be pertinent to report to their Head of House as soon as possible. Additionally, we will be interviewing several students throughout the course of this afternoon. Please help us to get to the bottom of this." 

The headmaster's gaze fell on the Slytherin table at this point. Draco was sure that Dumbledore had look straight at him. 

_Damn._

He had known this was coming, of course; you couldn't leave someone Petrified in a broom cupboard and expect no one to make a fuss. Still, it was not something he wanted to have to deal with right now, not with the... _situation_... with Granger taking up most of his thoughts. 

_Pregnant._

He _had_ to stop thinking about it. He pushed it to the back of his mind and mentally went over his cover story. 

He and Blaise had been in the bath together. From right after supper until around 10 o'clock. 

Draco wasn't sure he wanted Dumbledore, or especially Snape, thinking that he liked to take baths with Blaise, but it had been the best they could come up with at such short notice. Blaise had locked the door to one of the bathrooms before he had gone to supper the night before, and it had stayed that way until he had gone in there to do his crying. Being in the same bath as another student wasn't against the rules (Draco had checked. Twice. Only one of those times had been with this particular instance in mind), so they shouldn't get in trouble. The teachers _might _find out about the brandy, in which case Blaise would have to own up and probably serve detention a few times, but Draco himself should appear completely innocent. 

Apart from that _bathing with Blaise_ thing, that was. He just hoped Granger would never find out about this particular lie. 

Draco expected to be one of the students who was interviewed, and, sure enough, an owl arrived requesting his presence in Dumbledore's office just as his last lesson of the day was beginning. 

Well, at least that was something. 

Draco made eye contact with Blaise as he left the Charms classroom. Blaise nodded his head almost imperceptibly to show that he remembered the story. Draco repeated this tiny exchange with Pansy before making his way to the headmaster's office. 

Snape was waiting for him in front of the stone gargoyle that guarded the entrance. 

"Good afternoon, Professor," Draco said, trying not to sound too cheerful. It was, after all, a _grave crime_ that they were there to discuss. 

"Mr Malfoy." Snape nodded before turning to the gargoyle and saying "Fizzing Whizzbee" with a remarkably sour expression on his face. 

Draco smirked. This was exactly why he liked Snape; he agreed with Draco's opinions on many idiotic things, such as Gryffindors, Harry Potter and Dumbledore's ridiculous obsession with sweets. 

Dumbledore was the only one present in his office when Draco and Snape entered. He told Draco to take a seat and then spent a full minute scrutinizing him over the top of his glasses. Snape took up a standing position next to Dumbledore. 

"Mr Malfoy," Dumbledore said finally, "Where were you at eight o'clock last night?" 

Draco took a moment to appear to be thinking. "In the bath, sir," he said. 

"I see. And at what time did you get out of the bath?" 

"Around ten o'clock, I think, sir." 

"Ten o'clock? You must have spent a terribly long time in there." 

"Well..." Draco said, hesitating intentionally. 

"Yes?" Snape asked. 

"Um, Blaise was in there with me." 

Snape suddenly looked like he was going to choke. 

Dumbledore remained impassive, which was rather a pity, Draco thought. 

"I see," Dumbledore said. He reached into a drawer and put something on the desk in front of Draco, who was watching Snape again. "Mr Malfoy, do you recognise this knife?" Dumbledore asked. 

Draco looked down to see the knife he had given Pansy yesterday. "No, sir," he said, in what he hoped was a puzzled tone of voice. 

"Do you have any idea what Miss Parkinson would be doing with such a weapon?" 

"No, sir. Sorry." 

Dumbledore looked at him. Snape joined in. Draco felt that he should say something more. 

"Granger tried to commit suicide by cutting herself," he said helpfully. 

Dumbledore nodded silently. "Very well, Mr Malfoy. You may go." 

Draco didn't hesitate to do as he was told. He got up, said goodbye to the professors and left the office as quickly as he dared. When he reached the bottom of the staircase he check to see that no one was looking and breathed a sigh of relief. 

Well. That had gone rather well. 

He checked his pocket watch and decided that it wasn't worth going back to Charms now, so he headed for the Room of Requirement to wait for Granger. 

He wasn't sure what kind of furnishings would be appropriate for this kind of occasion. Usually the room provided them with a large bed and whatever else seemed like a fun idea at the time. Somehow Draco doubted Granger would approve of that kind of thing today. 

In the end he settled for a fireplace and two comfortable armchairs. Well, fine, and a rug. And a settee. And a table with assorted food and drinks, and a chandelier, and some photos of his favourite Quidditch players on the walls. He was in the middle of deciding whether the floor should be parquet or marble when Granger arrived. 

_Parquet,_ he decided, and turned to look at her. 

"Hello," she said; a little nervously, Draco thought. 

"Hello," he said. He picked up a bowl of fruit. "Apple?" he asked, in what he hoped was a friendly way. He wasn't used to being friendly, so he wasn't quite sure how to do it right. He just knew that when Grange said "civilised", what she meant was "friendly", so he would endeavour to behave this way so as not to come off as an ignorant idiot. Which would probably happen anyway, since he really didn't know more than the basics about pregnancy, but he had to _try_. 

Granger took the apple warily and sat down in one of the armchairs. 

Draco sat down in the other and waited. 

Nothing happened. 

"So... what do you want to talk about?" Draco asked finally. 

"Whatever _you_ want to talk about," Granger answered. "I don't feel any particular need to talk to _you_ about anything, really." 

Draco sneered. "Well... how is this going to work? I assume you want to keep the baby?" 

Granger nodded. 

"But _why?_" Draco couldn't help but ask. 

"Because I think it's the right thing to do." 

Draco laughed cruelly. "Of course. What other reason could there possibly be for a Gryffindor?" 

"Malfoy, remember when I said I would have a _civilised_ discussion with you? Because it appears that you don't." 

"Fine." Draco looked at her for a moment. "What do you want me to do?" 

"Nothing you don't want to." 

"I don't want to do _anything_!" 

"That's fine." 

"Good." 

There was another silence. Granger looked at him expectantly. 

"And you are not to tell _anybody_ that I'm the father, or I shall cut off your toes and make you eat them." 

Granger looked at him like he was an ignorant idiot. Drat. 

"Why would I want anyone to know that _you_ were the father of my child, Malfoy?" she asked. "They would be disgusted. They would probably disown me, especially Ron. Besides, as I told McGonagall in as many words earlier, it's nobody's business but my own." 

"You told McGonagall that you were pregnant?!" Draco asked, incredulously. 

_Ignorant idiot,_ Granger's expression said again. 

"What did you think I would do, Malfoy? Wear loose clothing for nine months and hope she wouldn't notice?" 

"How did she react?" 

Granger sighed. "She wasn't happy. Not that I expected her to be, but she gave me this long speech about responsibility and intelligence and how she expected better from me, and it was _exactly_ what I've been telling _myself_ for the last two days, and..." She sniffed, and Draco realised that she was trying not to cry. "And she said I couldn't be Head Girl." 

She really was crying now. She buried her face in her hands and turned away from him. 

Draco asked the Room for a handkerchief, and then rather awkwardly tapped Granger on the shoulder and handed it to her. 

"Thank you," she said, and blew her nose. "Sorry." 

Draco shrugged. He had a strong urge to say something really nasty to her (she was _crying_!), but something was rather annoyingly holding him back. 

"Eddyway..." Granger said, wiping her nose. "I should be going. I haven't told Harry and Ron yet." 

"I'm sure they'll be _thrilled_..." 

"I've got this funny feeling that they're both going to faint, actually. Then they'll wake up and demand to know who the father is, and then..." She trailed off, sighing, and rose from her seat. "Thanks for not being as much of a prat as you usually are, Malfoy." 

Draco shrugged again. Granger looked at him for a second, then nodded and left. 

Draco leaned back in his armchair. He stayed there for a moment, staring at the abandoned apple on the arm of Granger's chair. Then he went off to find out if Blaise had remembered his cover story.

* * *

**Author's note:** This is now officially the longest thing I've ever written (my previous record was just over 31000 words). Yay me! :D 

And it's not nearly over yet... 

Thanks for all the lovely reviews, everyone! To burgundyred: I'm honestly surprised that you're the only one (so far) who has reacted in the way you did to Hermione's pregnancy. All I can say is that I promise to do my very, very best. 


	20. Chapter 20

Several weeks later Draco hadn't been suddenly expelled, so he surmised that no one had found out about or at least been able to prove his involvement in the attack on the Hufflepuff second year. This being the case, he had been able to concentrate on the final Quidditch match of the season; the one he had to win to win the Cup. The one against Gryffindor. 

He had been training his team as hard as possible, even using the times when the couldn't use the pitch to practise speed and agility over the lake. He had kept them awake in empty classrooms until the dead of night trying to drill strategies into their skulls. He had bought them all new brooms and was going to make them forfeit their Hogsmeade visit and practise all Saturday to make sure they got enough time on the pitch before the match next week. 

And then, that morning as they were walking to the Great Hall for breakfast, Blaise said: "What time do you think you'll be back from meeting your father?" 

Oh, _hell_. 

He had completely forgotten that he was supposed to be meeting his father today for further instructions for the spell. This was _not good_. 

"I'm not sure," he answered, hoping that Blaise wouldn't notice that Draco's stomach seemed to have suddenly sunk below ground level. "I'll come and find you when I get back." 

He had planned out today's Quidditch practice _perfectly_, down to the last detail, and now he was going to have to fit it all in in half the time. 

_Not good!_ he repeated to himself, growing more frustrated and annoyed with himself by the second. 

As anticipated, it didn't go well. He didn't have time to work on Malcom's Keeping skills properly, and Joshua hit a Bludger the wrong way and managed to split one of the brand new brooms in half. 

By the time he was running towards the Hog's Head, already two minutes late, Draco was fuming. 

He fought his self-loathing as he made small talk and his father slipped him a "note from his mother", which was in fact clearly the latest instructions. 

And then he rather badly failed to hide his surprise when his father asked him to take a walk with him. 

"I... um, yes sir," he stammered. Him, Draco Malfoy. _Stammering_, in front of his father, no less. 

Lucius Malfoy looked at him reprovingly. "Come along, then." 

They left the Hog's Head in silence and Draco followed his father through the muddy roads until they reached one of the quieter, residential areas of the village, his stomach now feeling like it was plummeting down towards sea level at horrendous speed. 

His father turned to face him abruptly, glanced around to make sure no one was watching and cast a Soundproofing Charm around the two of them. 

"Draco," he said sternly, "you are not to discuss what I am about to tell you with _anyone_ apart from myself unless I specifically tell you otherwise." 

Draco looked at him, careful not to let too much of his curiosity show. "Yes, Father." 

"Good. Now, the Dark Lord's forces are planning the... _strategic removal_ of Amos Diggory. I wish for you to be a part of this operation. You are to dispose of Diggory's wife." 

"You mean... you want me to kill her?" 

"In as many words, yes. It is not an overly large or difficult task, but it is nonetheless a vital element of the operation. You will set upon them while they sleep, so the entire procedure should be fairly simple. However, the reason I am telling you this now is so that you will have adequate time to prepare yourself. Practise the Killing Curse. This is where your command of it will truly be put to the test. Do you understand?" 

"Yes, sir." Draco was too taken aback to say anything else even if he had wanted to. 

"Very well. This will be an excellent opportunity for you to prove your worth to the Dark Lord, Draco, provided you don't make a nuisance of yourself." 

"Yes sir." 

"Excellent. Well, I believe that is all, so I will leave you to get back to your studies, which you are undoubtedly completely immersed in." Draco's father lifted the Soundproofing Charm and stepped away from him. "Farewell, and do try to win your next Quidditch match. I have, after all, yet to hear of your winning against Gryffindor." 

And with that Lucius Malfoy strode back towards the village centre. 

Draco stood there for a moment, trying not to look quite as dumbfounded as he felt. Then he slowly turned around and made his way back up to Hogwarts. 

His father wanted him to kill someone. Not just a Muggle, an actual _someone_. He was going to be responsible for _ending someone's life._

Wow. 

Draco just hoped he was up to the task. 

He found Blaise and Pansy in the common room, and, after Pansy had complained that he was keeping her away from Hogsmeade and he had insulted her in return, the three of them went to the boys' dormitories and sat on Draco's bed to read the new instructions for the spell. 

It listed a lot of ingredients, to be administered at specific times. 

Blaise groaned. "Not _more_ things that are impossible to get!" he cried. 

"Shut up, Blaise," said Draco. "_I'm_ the one who always has to _do_ the impossible and get them anyway, aren't I?!" 

"I got the brandy. That was _awful_." 

"Yes, and I got the blood and was almost _killed_ when I had to get that stinking piece of squid flesh." 

"Well, _I_ got a whole month of detention," said Pansy, obviously feeling left out. 

"That was your own fault and you know it." Draco glared at both of them. "Look, however impossible it seems, we still _have_ to get these ingredients. We'll have to come up with a plan." 

"But look how _many_ there are!" said Blaise. "And some of them you could probably only find in Snape's office." 

"Then that's where we'll get them from." 

"You mean we're going to steal them? From _Snape_? Do you have _any_ idea how much trouble we would be in if we were caught?" 

"We haven't been caught yet, and we've done far worse things than stealing." After what he had already been through, Draco reasoned, this should be a piece of cake. 

"Why can't we just ask Snape to _give_ us the ingredients?" Pansy asked. "He is on our side, after all." 

"Yes, but think of the trouble _he_ would be in if anyone found out," said Blaise. 

"Blaise is right. Even if we do get caught, we might still be able to get him to _accidentally_ forget to take all the ingredients back." Draco said thoughtfully. "Or... If we steal twice what we need and hide half in a different place, we'll still have a backup stash if one gets confiscated." 

Blaise nodded. "That's smart. I like it." 

"Good." Draco consulted the instructions. "We don't actually have to do anything with these ingredients for over a week. We should get them as close to the time as possible, so that there's less chance of someone accidentally finding them. So, we'll beat Gryffindor at Quidditch and _then_ worry about it." 

"You really think we're going to win this time, Draco?" Pansy smiled. 

"I don't think so," said Draco confidently. "I _know_ so." 

And indeed, when he was sat on his broom, sweeping his eyes over the other players and looking for the Snitch a week later, they were indeed winning. 

The score was 90-40 for Slytherin. 

He was winning and it was his birthday tomorrow. He would _finally_ be able to do magic anywhere and any time, not just at home, where his father had had to make a rather complicated enchantment so that underage wizardry couldn't be detected, and here at Hogwarts. He would be _free_. 

Things could not be better. 

He caught sight of Granger in the crowd of Gryffindors below and grinned to himself. Nope, not even she could darken his mood right now, she and her stupid baby. 

They hadn't really spoken since their conversation in the Room of Requirement, and Draco was quite content with this arrangement. He would be quite content never to speak to her again, in fact. So there. 

He did want to see the look on her face when Slytherin won, though, so he scoured the pitch with renewed vigour, searching for that tiny glint of gold which would signal his imminent victory. 

He sighed when he still couldn't find it and glanced at Granger again. 

And then he saw it. The Snitch was hovering a few hundred feet above the Gryffindor stands. 

With a whoop of joy, Draco accelerated towards it. 

He looked down as he flew over where Granger was standing so that he could see her expression when he effectively won the Quidditch Cup for Slytherin... 

Just in time to see her collapse. 

Draco's jaw hung open. 

_What...?_

_Why...?_

He realised that he had slowed down considerably. 

And then he realised that Potter had just flown over his head at great speed. 

Draco gripped his broom and sailed upwards towards the Snitch as fast as he could... 

But Potter's fingers were already closing around it. 

"No!" cried Draco, shaking his broom in anger and almost making himself fall off as a result. 

The crowd was cheering, Hagrid was carrying Granger away, and it seemed like all his fellow Slytherins were staring at Draco. 

He touched down dejectedly on the side of the pitch. 

Nobody on the team exchanged a word as they got changed. They could tell when Draco shouldn't be angered. 

He strode back up to the castle a short while later in a huff, berating himself over and over again... but his thoughts kept gravitating towards Granger. What exactly had happened to her? How serious was it? 

Was she _dead_? 

His feet seemed to bring him to the corridor outside the hospital wing of their own accord. Thankfully they also allowed him to jump behind a suit of armour when Potter and Weasley emerged, still in their Quidditch attire. 

"We'll be back as soon as we can!" Potter said, glancing back over his shoulder. 

Well, at least that probably meant she wasn't dead, Draco thought. 

He stepped out from behind the armour and peered into the room. 

Granger was sitting up in bed while Madam Pomfrey fluffed a pillow behind her. 

_Phew,_ Draco thought before he could stop himself. 

Madam Pomfrey disappeared into an adjacent room, promising to be back in a minute, and Draco's traitorous feet carried him to Granger's bedside. 

She looked rather surprised to see him. 

"What are you doing here?" she asked quietly. 

"Oh, you know... I just wanted to check that you weren't dead or anything." 

"I'm fine. I just fainted." 

"You could've told me that _before_ it distracted me and made me miss the Snitch..." 

"I didn't _know_ I was going to faint, did I?" Granger hissed. 

"How should I know? You probably did it on purpose, for all I know." 

"No." She looked down guiltily. "I'm... I'm sorry about that." 

Draco shook his head. "Never mind. It doesn't matter." 

And he was rather disturbed to find that he meant it. 

But he was unable to give this unsettling realisation much thought, because, after nodding quietly for a moment, Granger said: "Good. Now, could you please leave me alone? I'm not really in the mood for talking to you right now." 

The anger he had felt after the match bubbled to the surface again. "Fine," he said, clenching his fists. 

He turned his back and walked out. 


	21. Chapter 21

Draco Malfoy was, once again, having a bad day. 

And it was only eight o'clock in the morning. 

He sighed and spread strawberry jam on his toast dejectedly. He much preferred blackcurrant, but apparently that wasn't on the menu today. 

He should complain, really. It was his birthday, after all, so he should be able to eat whatever he wanted. Forcing him to have strawberry jam instead was just not fair. 

His presents had been rubbish, too. 

Oh, he had got the usual small bag of Galleons from Father, which would certainly come in useful, and the cake sent on behalf of his mother smelled pretty good, but as for the rest... 

Theodore hadn't got him anything, because he never did. 

Millicent had forgotten. 

Blaise had got him a book. It looked really boring. 

Crabbe and Goyle had given him some kind of sickly sweet cake-type thing. 

Pansy had bought tickets for a Weird Sisters concert, even though he detested them. She probably expected him to take her with him, as well... 

The others weren't even worth mentioning. 

Granger hadn't got him anything, either. He hadn't really expected her to, of course, but he did think that it might possibly be a Granger-like thing to do. 

She probably would have given him something he actually _liked_ as well, knowing her. 

He looked over to where she was sitting at the Gryffindor table between Potter and Weasley. She was very slowly eating a slice of toast with nothing on. 

He vaguely wondered what the Goody Gryffindors were doing up so early on a Sunday. They had probably got up just to gloat because they'd won the Cup yet _again_. 

Weasley said something to Granger, which made her glare at him the way she so often did at Draco and shout: "Could you _please_ stop going on about it?! I am _fine_!" 

Then she got up, took her half eaten piece of toast and stormed out of the Great Hall. 

Pansy, who was unfortunately sitting next to him, giggled. "What's wrong with _her_?" 

"She's pregnant," Draco said. He didn't feel like being particularly nice to Granger at the moment, not after she had been so unappreciative of him yesterday. This would be the perfect revenge. 

Pansy stared at him, completely agog. "Really?" 

"Yep." 

"How do you know?" 

"I heard her and Weasley shouting about it." 

"_Weasley_?!" Pansy grinned from ear to ear. "Oh, this is priceless!" 

"Indeed it is." Draco nodded. 

"Excuse me a moment," said Pansy, who stood up and made her way over to where Millicent was sitting. 

Draco grinned to himself. The whole of Hogwarts should know by lunchtime. 

In fact, he heard a group of fourth-years talking about it when he, Blaise and Pansy were making their way down to the dungeons just half an hour later. 

They heard a collective gasp and a "Really? _Brainger_?!" and Pansy smiled happily. 

"Nice work, Pansy," said Blaise, and Draco had to agree. Sometimes being the Queen of Gossip's object of lust did have its advantages. 

_Take **that**, Granger._

They arrived outside Snape's office and hid around the nearest corner. 

"Are you really sure this is the best way to do this?" Blaise asked Draco. 

"Yes." 

"It just... well, it does seem a bit simple." 

"Which is why it'll work." 

"Okay..." 

Snape came out of his office at exactly ten minutes to nine, just as Draco had told them he would. Snape always came out of his office at ten to nine on a Sunday morning and spent the next hour in the prefects' bathroom, something Draco had discovered last year at great cost to his own dignity. At least he could put this information to good use. 

"But why does he use the prefects' bathroom?" Pansy whispered as they crept towards the door. "Hasn't he got his own bath?" 

"I don't see why he wouldn't. It probably just hasn't got the facilities for getting a week's worth of grime off of him. _Alohamora!_" 

Draco pushed the door and it opened without so much as a squeak. 

"You mean he only washes once a _week_?" said Pansy, who showered twice a day. 

"As far as I can tell." He closed the door behind them. "Okay, have you both got your lists and bottles?" 

Pansy and Blaise nodded. 

"Let's get to work, then." 

Draco took out his own list, consulted it and looked at the shelves, searching for frogs' eyes. He found them quickly enough and put some into a small bottle, which he put back in one of the inside pockets of his robe before moving on to the next item. 

He was in the middle of stealing some doxy wings when he heard the sound of footsteps coming from the stone passageway outside. 

The three students froze. 

"Uh-oh," said Blaise. 

Draco scoured the room for somewhere to hide. There was only one real possibility, and even that wasn't a very good one. Still, it was better than nothing. 

"Under the desk," he hissed at the others, and they ran across the room and crammed themselves into the small space. 

"Oh no..." said Pansy. "I left the lid off that bottle! What if he notices?!" 

"Shut up!" 

He heard the door handle turn, and the footsteps got clos-- 

_Hang on._

There were_ two_ sets of footsteps. 

The reason for this soon became apparent. There was a rustling sound above their heads as the things on the desk were moved around, and then a thump. 

Then there was something that sounded suspiciously like kissing. 

And moaning. 

One of the voices was almost certainly Snape's. The other was female and sounded far too young to belong to any of the other teachers. 

Draco stared at the underside of the desk in shock. 

He looked at the others. Their mouths were hanging open. 

"Fucking _hell_!" mouthed Blaise. 

Draco nodded in agreement. 

Pansy was shaking her head, eyes wide. 

All three of them winced as a particularly loud grunt was heard. 

Draco put his hands over his ears. 

He was going to be scarred for life after this, he could tell. 

The grunting and moaning and banging on the desk (honestly, Draco might be jealous if he wasn't busy being _completely traumatised_...) grew gradually louder before subsiding. They were followed by a few sighs, then some irregular footsteps and somebody clearing their throat. 

"Um," said the female voice. 

"...Yes." said Snape. 

The female voice sighed. "We shouldn't have done that." 

Draco's ears perked up. 

That sounded like _Weasley's sister_! 

"No. No, probably not. Almost certainly not, in fact," Snape agreed. 

"You won't tell anyone, will you?" asked the girl who Draco was now certain was Ginevra Weasley. 

"Merlin, no! Will you?" 

The Weasley girl laughed. "Yeah, right." 

"Well. Good. I... I hope you don't feel I've... taken advantage of you." 

"Oh no, not at all. Don't worry. Um. I think I'll... go now." 

"Yes. Right." 

The door opened and closed. Snape could be heard pacing the office for several minutes before he too left. 

Draco, Pansy and Blaise slowly emerged from their hiding place. 

"Bloody _hell_!" said Draco. He looked at his companions. "Could you try to finish here as soon as possible? I have a sudden urge to run outside and scream as loudly as I possibly can." 

Which he did about ten minutes later. It made him feel much better. 

He walked back into the castle at a rather more leisurely pace than that at which he had gone out. 

After hiding the stolen bottles under his bed, he made his way back up towards the library. He needed to find some books to help him bring his Transfiguration up to scratch. 

Draco _hated_ Transfiguration. 

Well, all right, he didn't actually hate Transfiguration itself. 

He hated that awful _Professor McGonagall_. 

He shuddered. 

And came to an abrupt halt when he turned the corner. 

Pansy was standing a short distance away, laughing viciously as she so often liked to do. Millicent and Tracy were with her. 

And Granger was backed against the wall, crying. 

"Aw, poor little Brainger," Pansy taunted her. She leaned in closer to Granger. "Not brainy enough though, obviously!" 

Millicent and Tracy laughed cruelly. 

And Draco felt... angry. 

He tried to put the implications (bad, _bad_ implications...) of this out of mind as he walked up to them. 

"Pansy, Blaise wants you to help him organise that stuff," he said. 

Pansy looked confused. "What stuff?" 

Draco glared at her. 

She began to shake her head, then stopped abruptly. "Oh." 

Draco nodded and Pansy scarpered off without bothering to say goodbye. 

Millicent and Tracy looked at him. 

Draco smiled at them. "I'll handle this. Off you go, now. Brainger-baiting isn't a spectator sport." 

Of course, it actually _was _usually preferable to have an audience for the kind of thing they _thought_ he was going to do, but these two had never been particularly good at catching Draco out. 

They were obviously disappointed but they left anyway, albeit rather more slowly than Pansy had. 

Granger was still crying. She leaned against the wall for support and sat down, not even looking at Draco. She drew her legs up in front of her and rested her forehead on her knees. 

"Erm... are you all right?" Draco asked, kneeling down next to her rather awkwardly. 

"No," Granger squeaked, hugging herself more tightly. 

"...Oh." He wondered if he should put an arm around her or something. 

"Why did this have to _happen_?" she sobbed. 

Well, at least Draco could sympathise with _that_. "I know," he said. "It's not fair..." 

Granger shook her head. Draco didn't know if this meant that she agreed with him or not. 

He decided to try the arm thing. 

She completely froze for a moment when he touched her. 

Then she turned around and threw her arms around his neck. Her chin was suddenly on his shoulder, and she was crying loudly. 

Draco put his hands on her back and squeezed. He didn't really have much experience with hugging. Well, apart from his great-aunt Celia, but he tended to try to get out of those situations as quickly as possible, before her awful perfume made him suffocate. 

This was different. 

As seemed to be becoming routine these days, he felt a sinking sensation somewhere in the vicinity of his stomach. Probably right where that strawberry jam was. 

_Why_ was he doing this?! She was just a Mudblood, he shouldn't care if she was upset, especially when he couldn't possibly get anything out of it! 

He should just leave. Right now. 

Get up. 

Push her away. 

But he didn't. 

**Author's note:** Okay, I know the bit with Snape was really gross, but I couldn't resist. I just got the idea in my head that there could be a whole Snape/Ginny plot happening elsewhere that Draco didn't know about, and this stupid idea would not go away. And Ginny is sixteen here, which is the age of consent in the UK, so... 

Sorry if I squicked ya. 


	22. Chapter 22

The train was pulling into the station, about to deposit a swarm of Hogwarts students on Platform 9 3/4. Draco could see parents outside, smiling in anticipation of having their brats back home for so many months. Predictably his own weren't among them, but there was sure to be a house elf waiting for him somewhere. 

He scanned the crowd, but he couldn't see anybody of house elf height on the platform but small children, running around all over the place. He wondered how their parents kept track of them. Then he resisted the urge to look at Granger, who was sitting across from him. 

They had been playing chess again lately. Strangely, Draco didn't really seem to care so much about winning anymore; he had been finding himself looking forward to talking to Granger much more than to the games themselves. 

It was rather worrying. 

What was even more worrying was that she had asked him to choose the baby's middle name. 

_Call it Draco_, had been his first thought... but then he had realised that that might not be the best way to keep his fatherhood a secret. Besides, what if it was a girl? 

The name had to be perfect, especially since Granger would undoubtedly give it something Muggle and mundane as a first name. 

And its last name would have to be Granger, wouldn't it? 

So he would have to choose something that wouldn't stand out _too_ much between two Muggle names, but which would still convey the strength and superiority which automatically came with having a Malfoy as a parent. Even if your other parent _was_ a Mudblood. 

It was going to be a difficult task. 

The train finally screeched to a halt and the other prefects around Draco began to file out of the compartment, ready to help the other students off the train and make sure no luggage got left behind and no one fell on the tracks. 

Draco had tried to push Weasley under the train once. It hadn't worked, but Granger had let out an awfully high-pitched scream which had been well worth the effort. 

Granger who was currently blocking the doorway to the compartment, of which they now seemed to be the sole occupants. 

He looked at her while she fidgeted and hesitated for a moment. 

"So..." she said, finally making eye contact with him. "Er, are you doing anything interesting over the summer?" 

_I'm going to help assassinate Amos Diggory._

He shrugged. "No, not really. You?" 

Granger shook her head. "Me neither. I was going to learn to Apparate, but that wouldn't really be a very clever thing to do now that I'm pregnant." She ran her hands over the slight bulge of her stomach. "I'm going to be so much bigger next time we see each other." 

"Um, yes. I suppose you are." 

"Well..." Granger said. She leaned out of the doorway and snuck a glance down the train before she looked back up at him. She kissed him quickly on the lips. "See you in September," she said, then turned around and left. 

Draco stood there alone for a moment, feeling rather stupefied. 

She hadn't kissed him since April. 

Draco was confused, and Malfoys weren't supposed to be confused. This being the case, he did his very best to put all thoughts of Granger to the back of his mind and made his way down onto the platform, purposely ignoring his prefect duties. 

He managed to keep the Granger-thoughts more or less away until he was lying in his bed that night, staring at the moonlight reflecting off the sword on the wall and helplessly pondering what it all meant. 

He hated Granger. He had always hated Granger; therefore he always would hate Granger. Granger was a Mudblood; Draco was a Malfoy, therefore he hated Mudbloods, therefore he hated Granger. 

But Granger was so... un-hateable. 

She didn't even really _annoy_ him anymore. Everything about her that used to annoy him like the way she quoted _Hogwarts: A History_ at the most inappropriate moments now made him feel all gooey inside. 

Him. Draco Malfoy. _Gooey._

He hated her for making him all soft and weak like this. 

Ha! 

So he _did_ hate her! 

Except... 

Except he had lost the Quidditch Cup because of her and hadn't cared. 

Except he used chess games as an excuse to see her. 

Except he really didn't want to be away from her for three months. 

And she was _pregnant_, and there were going to be Muggle doctors prodding and poking at her and not looking after her properly and she wouldn't realise because she was stupid like that and... 

And he really shouldn't be thinking about her. At all. 

Well... until September. 

He squeezed his eyes shut and willed himself to sleep. 

The next morning he went to his very first proper Death Eater meeting. 

The Dark Lord himself wasn't there, and Draco really didn't know if he was excited or relieved about that. 

But he _was_ excited about the assassination. 

Oh yes. Very excited. 

...Yep. Not nervous, just excited. 

Not nervous. 

He sat on the edge of the pink (_pink!_), comfy sofa of the brightly lit room (it wasn't supposed to be brightly lit, Draco was sure... There were supposed to be torches and... well, and skulls and stuff, right?) and tried to pay attention to every single word the man standing by the fireplace was saying. It was Mr Nott, Theodore's father, and Draco was finding it rather difficult to focus on what he was saying rather than how much he looked like his son. 

They had the exact same strangely shaped nostrils... 

Draco shook himself out of it. He couldn't afford to miss anything. This was important! 

"We will Apparate simultaneously here, here and here..." Mr Nott was saying, pointing with his wand at the map which was floating beside him. "Myself and Mulciber will be here by the door, Jugson outside, and Malfoy Junior and Goyle will Apparate directly into the bedroom." 

_That's me! Malfoy Junior, that's me!_

Draco almost laughed gleefully, but stopped himself just in time. He had a feeling it might be seen as inappropriate. 

"The two of you will ascertain that neither of them is awake and that the situation is otherwise secure, then I shall enter the room and take care of Mr Diggory. Malfoy Junior will do the same for Diggory's wife. When they're both dead I will leave the Dark Mark and we will Disapparate." Mr Nott grinned. "Simple but effective. Any questions?" 

_Er, why is it _me_ who has to make sure we're not being ambushed? What if we _are_ ambushed? I could _die 

Draco merely shook his head. 

"Excellent," said Mr Nott. "We shall reconvene next Thursday at eleven o'clock." 

The next Thursday at eleven o'clock, after a horribly intense week of Apparation lessons, Draco was standing next to the pink sofa, his gaze fixated on one of the candles on the coffee table (they didn't even have torches at night-time! It was most disconcerting), digging his fingernails into his palms and trying not to appear apprehensive or impatient, when in fact he was both. It felt like apprehension and impatience were battling it out inside his abdomen, with only Draco's sense of Malfoy pride to keep them from completely consuming him; the pride which had taken rather a battering in recent months and thus was really not in a position to keep his currently rather strong, _bad_ feelings in check for very much longer. 

A loud CRACK behind him made Draco jump (he _really_ had to stop doing that), and he turned around to see Mr Nott looking around the room with a small, satisfied smile on his face. 

Draco's impatience suddenly died, leaving his apprehension to do a victory dance in his stomach. 

"Everybody's on time," Mr Nott was saying. "Excellent. We shall get started right away. I trust you are all prepared?" His eyes swept the room, and Draco was sure that they rested on him longer than anyone else. 

Draco nodded, and swallowed. It made his throat hurt. 

"Very well." Mr Nott raised his wand. "On my signal, then." 

Draco tried to breathe normally. Apparation, right. He could do it. It was easy really, once you got the hang of it, and he had done pretty well during his lessons... 

Swish-and-flick, went Mr Nott's wand, with an eerie precision which reminded Draco of his very first Charms lesson... 

Mr Nott disappeared. Draco forced himself not to squeeze his eyes shut, tried to remember everything he had learnt over the past week, gripped his wand tightly... 

...and suddenly found himself in the dark, with a loud snoring sound coming from somewhere near his elbow. 

Well. That had worked, then. 

"_Lumos_," he whispered, and found himself looking down into the vaguely familiar face of Amos Diggory. 

It winced. 

Draco quickly moved the light out of Diggory's eyes and looked around at his surroundings. 

Goyle's father was standing on a small pink rug at the end of the bed, sweeping the room with his illuminated wand. It was a rather small bedroom when compared to what Draco was used to, especially when you considered that this was supposed to be the _master_ bedroom. The door was in the opposite wall from the bed, was off-white and had two flannel dressing gowns hanging on it from a simple metal hook. There was a chest of drawers by the door with a few photographs above it. On the next wall, by the window, was a mirror, and when he walked across to there Draco saw that there was a small table on Mrs Diggory's side of the bed with a book and an empty mug on top, across from which was a chair with what were presumably her clothes folded neatly on the seat. 

It was all very... ordinary. 

Goyle's father opened the door and Mr Nott came in. He was smiling that unsettling smile of his again as he took a cursory glance around the room and then looked at Draco. "You ready then, boy?" said in a low voice, grinning. 

Draco nodded, and it suddenly occurred to him that that seemed to be all he ever did lately in the company of Mr Nott. He watched as Theodore's father turned towards the bed with a hungry look in his eyes. He raised his wand. 

Draco raised his, trying to mimic Mr Nott's stance. 

Then Mr Nott sharply inclined his head, and before Draco knew it the man next to him was shouting out the Killing Curse, and Draco had better do the same _right now_ if he didn't want to be in trouble... 

"Avada Kedavra!" he shouted, bringing his wand down, hearing his blood pumping in his ears. 

Mrs Diggory twitched. 

Then she opened her eyes and _screamed_. 

Draco flailed backwards in alarm. This couldn't be happening, _why_ would this be happening, he hadn't had any trouble with the Killing Curse since he had first learnt it, more than a _year_ ago now, why, _why_ was it going wrong now! 

Mrs Diggory was standing up, Draco could feel Mr Nott's eyes boring into the side of his head, he had to try again, had to get it right... 

"Avada Kedavra!" he shouted again. 

Mrs Diggory stumbled, but lurched over to the chair and fumbled with the robes which lay on it. She was pulling something out... 

"Oh, for goodness' sake," Mr Nott growled, and Draco turned to see him raise his wand at Mrs Diggory, and then, from behind, Mr Goyle's voice: 

"_Petrificus Totalus!_" 

All the muscles in Draco's body suddenly froze up, he vaguely felt the sensation of falling, heard a muffled thump as he landed on the fluffy pink rug, and blacked out. 

He awoke to find his father towering over him, looking more furious than Draco had ever seen him in his life. 

He shrunk back into what he vaguely recognised at the sheets on his bed. 

He was in his room, then. 

"Get up," his father snarled, standing back. 

"Yes sir," Draco said, unable to keep the hint of a whimper from his voice. His arms felt weak as he propped himself up on them and hesitantly got to his feet. 

"You have embarrassed me many times over the years, Draco, but this...!" His father was pacing, flailing his arms about. "What in Merlin's name is wrong with you! I made _sure_ you had mastered the Killing Curse! But of course, you had to get it wrong, you had to humiliate me in the worst way possible! Do you have _any_ idea what this is going to do to our family's reputation among the Dark Lord's circles! To your chances of becoming a full-fledged Death Eater? Draco, you had better not have let anything go wrong with that spell at Hogwarts. If you get back and all is not as it should be... the Dark Lord will invent a new torture method especially for the Malfoy family, and we will spend the rest of our lives in pain." 

"Everything's fine with the spell, sir," Draco said, already knowing that trying to defend himself was probably the stupidest thing he could possibly do. "I'm sure we did everything right so it would be alright to leave for the holidays, and after that we don't really." 

"_Don't_ answer back!" 

"Yes, sir." 

"_Crucio!_" 

Draco gasped and doubled over in pain. He hadn't been expecting it, and even if he had, his father had never inflicted pain this strong on him before. It seared through his body like fire and he cried out involuntarily. 

It would stop now, surely it would stop, it never went on this long... 

But no, the burning agony from his insides to his fingertips continued for what seemed like an eternity, cutting through him, and the back of his eyes stung and he was afraid, so afraid that he was going to cry in front of his father... 

And then it stopped, and Draco stumbled backwards, crashed into a bedpost and fell to the floor, whimpering. 

His father came to stand over him. "You will not leave this room for the next twenty-four hours. You will have neither food nor drink brought to you, and not even the house elves will be permitted to enter. And you _will not fail me like this again,_ do you understand?" 

Draco couldn't bring himself to answer. 

His father swept out of the room, and Draco closed his eyes. 

This was bad. 

This was very bad. 

This was quite possibly the worst thing that had ever happened to him. 

Ha. And he had thought getting Granger pregnant was the end of the world. He had been so naive, hadn't he? 

Granger. 

He wondered what she was doing right now. Probably fast asleep in bed. Hair spread all over the pillow, hand probably held protectively over her ever-expanding stomach... 

Hmm. 

Draco slowly got up, limped over to his desk and pulled a map out of one of the drawers. He leant over it and murmured a few spells under his breath. 

_Hmm._

It wasn't even that far. 

_Well, why not? What's the worst she can do? Shout at me? Ha. Terrifying, I'm sure._

Decision made, Draco grabbed his cloak, opened the doors to his balcony, took his old broom from its corner, and leapt off the railing and into the night. 

Less than an hour later he was peeking through Granger's window. 

The lights were off, so she was probably asleep. Shrugging, he took out his wand, whispered "_Alohamora!_" and climbed into the bedroom. 

He carefully closed the window and leaned his broom against the wall, then tiptoed over to the bed. 

Bushy brown hair, white cotton nightie, duvet clutched tightly underneath her chin... yep, it was definitely Granger. 

Taking off his shoes and cloak and laying them on the desk chair, Draco climbed onto the narrow bed and lay down beside her. 

Almost as an afterthought, he stole the duvet. 


	23. Chapter 23

**Author's Note:** This is the fluffiest chapter in the whole story. Just thought I'd warn you.

* * *

Draco was woken by a high-pitched shriek right next to his ear. 

He jerked upright, getting tangled in the bedclothes, panic momentarily gripping him as he tried desperately to remember where he was... 

Until he saw a nightdress-clad Granger standing by the bed, looking at him in shock. 

_Ohh. Right._

He manoeuvred himself into a less panicked-looking pose. 

"Malfoy! What on earth are you doing!" Granger demanded. 

"Er... I'm not sure," Draco had to admit. 

Granger put her hands on her hips and raised her eyebrows. 

"Look, it seemed like a good idea at the time!" he tried to explain. "I... that is, my fath... I just didn't want to have to wait until September to see you again, alright?" 

_By all that is evil and twisted, _what_ did I just say?_

Granger sighed, but seemed to relax a little. 

_Oh, what the hell. I'm already a failure. Who cares if I've slipped even further?_

"Hermione? Is everything alright?" The bedroom door opened and Granger's parents, whom Draco recognised vaguely from the odd encounter when buying school supplies, poked their heads in. 

And stared at him. 

Draco stared back, still sat up in Granger's bed and covered with her pink (more pink! It was positively plaguing him lately) duvet and sheets. 

Granger looked from her parents to Draco and back again. "...Yes," she said eventually. "It's fine. Um, Mum, Dad, this is Draco. The father." 

Granger's parents stared at him some more. 

"Hello," Draco said, with as much dignity as he could muster whilst covered in pink. 

"Nice to meet you," Granger's mother said after a moment's awkward hesitation. She came forward to shake his hand. "Draco, was it?" 

Draco put on his best non-evil-but-still-not-at-all-sheepish-really smile as Granger's father stepped towards him as well, after a very familiar-looking glare from Granger's mother. 

"How do you do," her father said politely. 

Draco nodded, trying to keep his smile in place when all he really wanted to do was find a way to travel back in time and tell himself what a bad, _bad_ idea this was, and that being locked in his room for twenty-four hours really wasn't such a terrible punishment, all things considered... 

"Just let me get dressed and we'll be down in a minute," Granger was saying. 

Her parents stared at him for a moment longer before they did as she had asked. 

Draco was impressed. His parents would never have let him take control of the situation like that. 

Granger sighed and turned round to face him. "You were explaining why you were here?" she said expectantly. 

Draco shrugged. "I missed you," he said simply. 

It was quite possibly the most honest thing he had ever said. 

Granger, alas, seemed completely unaware of this and was still regarding him rather sceptically. But finally she shook her head, muttered "Fine," under her breath and turned to open the wardrobe. 

"How long were you planning on staying?" she asked, carefully placing a long, flowing cotton dress on top of Draco's cloak on the desk chair. 

"Er... a day?" Draco ventured. "I've got to be back by around midnight, I suppose." 

"Okay..." Granger dug around in a drawer and produced a plain white bra and pair of pants, which she put on the desk in front of her. "So what exactly were you planning on doing here? You do realise that when I'm at home my entire world revolves around Muggles? I thought you hated them." 

"I thought I hated _you_," Draco answered, watching captivatedly as she almost casually started to undress. "But somehow it really doesn't seem like I can." 

She turned around, regarding him as he stared openly at her naked, pregnant body, practically in awe of her. 

"You're beautiful," he said quietly, reaching out to brush his fingers down the side of her stomach. 

"Malfoy, what is _wrong_ with you?" 

"Nothing!" Draco snatched his hand away. 

"_Clearly_ that's not true. You break into my bedroom, you admit that you don't hate me, you pay me an actual _compliment_... Something has obviously happened to you, and I'm not entirely sure I shouldn't be frightened by it." 

"I won't hurt you." 

Granger sighed. "I know." She reached for her clothes. "It's just that I really don't understand you at all sometimes." 

"I think you understand me better than you give yourself credit for. It's rather unnerving, really." 

"If you say so." Granger pulled her dress on and reached for her wand to tidy her hair. 

Draco reluctantly disentangled himself completely from the bedclothes and stood up. 

"So," said Granger, slipping her feet into a pair of worn tartan slippers, "Are you ready to face the inquisition?" 

"There's going to be an inquisition?" 

Granger grinned at his confusion. "My parents. They're going to want to know _all_ about you." She opened the door. "Oh, and call me Hermione. They'll think it's strange if the father of my child calls me by my surname." 

She stepped onto the landing, and Draco followed her downstairs. 

The kitchen was tiny compared to the one at the manor, and there wasn't a dining room. Rather, the Grangers ate their breakfast at a small table in the kitchen, next to a window with a view of the small garden behind the house. 

The table had a plastic tablecloth. Draco had never even imagined such a thing before. 

"Sit down," Granger instructed, waving a hand in the direction of a small wooden bench along the wall. 

Draco did as he was told. He suddenly felt very uncomfortable. 

The tablecloth had little pictures of purple rabbits on it. 

Draco looked up and saw the most astounding sight yet: Granger's father was standing by the stove, poking at something in a small pan. 

Looking to his right, Draco saw Granger's mother putting toast in a toast rack. 

Wow. Granger's parents _cooked_. 

It made sense, Draco supposed. After all, there obviously weren't any house elves or anything to do it for them. Still, Draco was pretty sure his own parents couldn't even cook a... well, something that was really easy. If there was such a thing. 

Granger came over holding a mug and what looked like a big plastic pot with steam coming out of one end. "Tea or coffee?" she asked him. 

"Er, coffee please." 

She nodded. "Black, right?" 

Draco returned the nod, and Granger disappeared back into a corner of the small room; to make his coffee, he presumed. 

"Do have a slice of toast, Draco," said her mother, putting the toast rack and a plastic tub of butter on the table in front of him. "Here you go." She handed him a plate and a knife and smiled expectantly. 

"Thank you," he said, tentatively reaching for a slice. She beamed and scurried away again. 

Granger reappeared, holding three mugs and a glass of milk, and sat down next to him. "Here you go," she said, handing him his coffee. She put the other two mugs down across the table, presumably where her parents were going to sit, and took a sip of the milk before reaching for the toast. "Pass the jam?" she asked, pointing at the jar by Draco's hand. 

Draco obeyed silently, trying not to show how out of place he really felt. 

"So, Draco." Granger's mother sat down opposite him and was quickly joined by her father, who grinned at him in a most unsettlingly friendly manner and gave Draco a boiled egg in a blue china cup. "Tell us about yourself." 

He was caught completely off guard by this. "Erm..." he managed. What was he supposed to tell them? 

Thankfully Granger stepped in. "Draco's in my Arithmancy class at school," she said. 

"Oh really?" said her mother, with more enthusiasm than Draco had ever heard from his own even on the most joyous of occasions. "Is that how you two met?" 

"Oh, no." Granger shook her head and nibbled at her toast. "We've known each other for years. Actually I think the first time I saw him was on the train on my first day. Do you remember?" she said, turning towards him. "I was looking for Neville's toad." 

"Um. Yes." 

He didn't remember at all -- all he really remembered from that first trip on the Hogwarts Express was Crabbe eating too many sweets and being rather violently sick, and trying to make friends with Potter and failing miserably. Not that he had even wanted to be friends with Potter once he found out what a stuck-up little show-off he was, but at the time it had stung quite badly. 

When Draco came out of this little reverie Granger was telling her parents how much she was looking forward to next year's Arithmancy lessons, when the class would be tackling the derivation of Mellicus' Law of Impermeability. Draco could tell that her parents had absolutely no idea what she was talking about, and yet they were still nodding and smiling as if they were completely fascinated by it. 

Strange. 

Granger managed to talk about this for quite some time. When she finally stopped it was probably only because her father stood up and began to clear the table. 

"Are you two going to be alright by yourselves for the day?" Granger's mother asked, glancing at her watch. 

Granger sighed affectionately and smiled. "Yes, Mum. I am going to be eighteen in a few months, you know." 

"Well, if you're sure..." Granger's mother stood and began stacking plates. "But behave yourselves, you hear me?" she said, wagging a finger. 

Granger laughed. "What do you think is going to happen, Mum? I can hardly get more pregnant." 

"Well, who knows with you wizarding people?" Granger's mother put the plates in the sink and then came back to give Granger a kiss on the cheek. "Have a good time," she said warmly. 

"Thanks Mum." 

Granger and her parents exchanged goodbyes, with Draco venturing a small wave, and then the two of them were left alone. 

"So," said Granger. "What exactly were you planning to do here today?" 

Draco shrugged. "I hadn't really thought that far." 

She seemed unsurprised by this. "Well, I was going to go to the library. Do you want to come?" 

"Um. Alright." He wondered what Muggle libraries were like. 

"Okay. We'll have to find you something to wear, then." 

Ack. Draco hated Muggle clothes. 

He followed Granger back upstairs and waited in her room while she went to look through her father's things and find something appropriate. 

Draco decided to snoop around a bit while he had the chance. Maybe he could find her diary or something... it would be interesting to see what she would write about him... 

There was nothing of interest on her bedside table, nor under the pillow. Draco turned to the desk, glancing quickly at the things on top before looking through the drawers. 

In the third one he hit the jackpot. 

He picked the small, leather-bound book up and began rifling through it, looking for a mention of his name. He thought he saw something, but at that moment a small pile of newspaper clippings fell from between the pages. He put the diary back on the desk and gathered the papers back up. Just as he was about to shove them back in the book, one of the still, Muggle pictures caught his eye. 

It was a photograph of a teenage girl. She had long brown hair and big brown eyes, and there was something very familiar about her. 

When Draco saw the picture next to it, he realised why. 

The second photograph was of another young girl, this one red-haired and blue-eyed. The reason Draco recognised them was that he had seen them in the dungeons at the Manor. They were two of the Muggles his father had brought him to practise the Unforgivable Curses on. 

There was a third picture next to those of the two girls; this one was of an old woman. Draco read the caption underneath it and, with a horrible sinking feeling in his stomach, realised something else. 

_Hazel Granger, 71_

Granger's grandmother. 

She had been right all along. It _had_ been a wizard who had killed her grandmother. Not just any wizard, either. Hazel Granger's murderer was none other than Lucius Malfoy. 

Draco heard footsteps on the landing and quickly shoved the newspaper clippings back in the diary, which he in turn hastily put back in the drawer before sitting on the bed, trying to look nonchalant. 

"I think these will fit you," Granger said, entering the room without even looking at him. "They're probably not the height of fashion, but you'll blend in." 

"Thanks." Draco took the jeans and t-shirt and hastily changed into them, trying not to be conscious of Granger's gaze on him. 

"Ready?" she asked when he was fully dressed. 

Draco nodded, and they left. 

They got to the library on the bus, which was another new experience for Draco. They spent some time in the library (which was disappointingly normal) before Granger bought them both ice creams and they went to take a walk by the canal. 

"So how are you enjoying your stay in Muggle Country?" Granger asked, licking a strawberry-flavoured drip off her chin. 

Draco shrugged. "It's alright." 

"And are Muggles the mindless animals you thought them to be?" 

"They seem quite normal, actually," Draco had to admit. "Apart from not doing any spells. And they make better ice cream," he said, licking his mint-choc-chip cone. 

Granger broke into a grin at this -- a grin which soon evaporated when raindrops began to fall on the two of them and, more importantly, their ice creams. 

"Oh, no..." She grabbed his hand, frantically licking at her strawberry cone at the same time lest it was washed away. "Come on," she said. "Let's find a bus." 

Draco managed to finish his ice cream before too much rain fell on it, and soon he and Granger were hurrying back inside her house, laughing at each other's soaked clothes and faces. 

"There should be some clean towels in the bathroom cupboard, " Granger said, quickly slipping her feet out of her sandals. 

Draco took off his shoes and followed her up the soft, carpeted stairs.. 

The bathroom looked fairly normal; the floor and parts of the walls were covered in light blue tiles, with the bath and toilet in matching colours. The cupboard Granger was now rummaging through was also painted blue, and the mat on the floor was navy. The only things which were obviously Muggle about it were the lights (elektrickassy or something, was what Granger had said) and the curtain hung above the bath, which Draco assumed was used to stop water from the shower drenching the floor in lieu of a containment charm. 

"Draco," Granger said, and he turned back to look at her. She threw a towel at him and grinned. "Take your clothes off." 

It only took Draco a moment to comply when he saw that she was slowly walking towards him, pulling her dress up little by little as she went. By the time she reached him they were both down to their underwear. 

"Granger..." he breathed, staring at her with the creeping realisation that he hadn't had sex in months. 

"Hermione," she said firmly, and kissed him. 

The rest of the day passed in a blur. 

Granger let him help prepare supper for them and her parents, which allowed him to add "cooking pasta" to his list of strange experiences. For some reason the conversation during this meal flowed much more freely than it had in the morning, and Draco found himself actually enjoying Mr and Mrs Granger's company. They were both really quite intelligent and obviously adored Gra... Hermione. 

Hermione. 

They lay in her bed together that evening, just smiling at each other, content despite their rather narrow confines. Draco watched her fall asleep in his arms before he reluctantly disentangled himself from her and her still very pink sheets, grabbed his cloak and broom and carefully opened the window. He stared at the night sky indecisively and glanced back at her. 

Leaning his broom back against the desk, he crossed the small space and planted a kiss on her forehead. 

Then he turned and took off into the darkness. 

When he landed on his balcony, he found he had a welcoming committee. 

His father and mother were standing just inside the door, arms crossed, their poses practically identical. 

"Where have you been?" his mother snapped. "How _dare_ you defy your father like this!" 

"I--" Draco began, but his father interrupted. 

"Draco, this behaviour is beyond unacceptable! I see no choice but to confine you to the dungeons for the next three days with the Muggles!" 

Draco didn't bother to protest as he was lead downstairs. 

When he re-emerged, there was still the faint trace of a smile on his face. 


	24. Chapter 24

As usual, Draco was looking forward to being back at Hogwarts. 

What was not usual was that he was also looking forward to _not_ being on the Quidditch team. His father had deemed this an appropriate part of his punishment for the utter disgrace Draco had caused him at the beginning of the holidays; after all, over the past few years Draco had been rather obsessed with Quidditch, even consumed by it at times. What Lucius Malfoy could not know was that this was no longer the case. 

Draco wasn't quite sure why, but when his father had ordered him to leave the Quidditch team he had felt oddly relieved. He supposed it was probably because even if he had played this year he still wouldn't have won the Quidditch Cup he had yearned for for so long, as by the time it should have been awarded the entire castle would be blown to smithereens if all went according to plan. 

Speaking of the plan, not having Quidditch to worry about as well was really quite a blessing, especially seeing as Hermione was due to give birth to his child only a couple of months from now. He really didn't know how things would go from there. 

Still, despite the lifting of this extra burden Draco felt strangely gloomy as he stared out of the window on the Hogwarts Express, pressing his forehead against the cold glass and wondering how much lower the temperature would have to be for him to freeze to it. He had seen Hermione in the prefects' carriage earlier, but they had not been able to stay out of earshot of everybody long enough to say even the briefest of hellos. He hoped they would at least get a minute or two when the train stopped. 

Goyle snorted in his sleep in the seat opposite, and Draco looked up to see Pansy gazing at their slumbering hulk of a comrade with a look of disdain. Glancing to the left, he saw that she was holding hands with Blaise. Draco caught Millicent's eye and together they let out a silent sigh, though most likely for completely different reasons. 

Draco was thinking about sitting on the train at the beginning of last year. He had had no idea that everything would suddenly become so different, but that had been the start of everything. That had been the day his father had told him about the spell. That had been the day when the chain of events had started which had led to his current situation with Hermione. And to think he had still been lusting ever-so-slightly after Pansy! 

Maybe he just went for girls who annoyed him. That could explain a lot. 

He tried not to think about his whole complicated, _insane_ situation for the rest of the journey and by the time they pulled into Hogsmeade he was actually starting to doze off, which was rather annoying in a way because it meant that he was quite rudely awakened by the loud screeching of the brakes and the jolting of the train as it slowed. 

Pansy came over and shook his shoulder. "Come on, Draco. Let's go and make sure none of the little brats get squished by their suitcases." 

Draco noticed that Hermione had chosen to stand guard by the very last door on the train, so he rushed as inconspicuously as possible to the next door down, twitching his eyebrows at her playfully as he took up position. The plan worked; Draco and Hermione eventually found themselves at the very back of the queue to the carriages which would take them up to the castle, quite a distance away from the bunch of Hufflepuff prefects in front of them. 

"Hello," said Draco, careful not to let the huge grin he could feel coming on reach his face for fear of being seen. 

"Evening," said Hermione. The corner of her mouth twitched, and there was a distinct sparkle present in her eyes. "How are you?" 

"Fine, you?" 

"I'm fine. I'm slow and fat and my back hurts, but I'm fine." 

"When can I kiss you?" He let the grin escape, just for a second. 

"Tomorrow." The corner of her mouth turned upwards for slightly longer. 

"I've got to wait that long? Can't I ravish you in the girls' toilets after the feast?" 

"Tempting, but no. Anyway, I don't think we'd both fit in one small cubicle at the moment." 

Draco sighed. "Alright. But you've got to let me do whatever I want to you tomorrow." 

"Promise." 

"Good." 

They were forced to share a carriage with a couple of the Hufflepuffs in front, so they made a point of sitting as far away from each other as possible and glaring occasionally. No one noticed them holding hands in the throng in front of the Great Hall, and they regretfully let go of each other just before they passed McGonagall and walked through the doors. 

"Miss Granger," said McGonagall, and Draco strained to hear as he kept going and left Hermione behind. He caught the words 'office' and 'feast', but they could've meant anything, so he put it out of his mind as he sat down at the Slytherin table next to Pansy. 

"Do you think everything's still going to plan?" she whispered, leaning over so no one could hear. 

"Yes." He hoped. 

Pansy nodded and went back to snogging Blaise. Draco sighed enviously and risked a longing glance at Hermione, who was being molested by a bunch of girls trying to feel her stomach. 

Resting his hand on his fist, Draco turned away again and watched with little interest as the first-years were Sorted. The new Slytherins looked to be a miserable, reedy little bunch, pushing each other and cackling in what he wagered were annoyingly high-pitched voices as they sat at the table near the front of the Hall. Draco was convinced that they got worse every year. He had never been so small and irritating, had he? 

Oh well, no matter. These would be the last first-years he would ever have to deal with, anyway. And only until February. 

...Wait. Wouldn't the child Hermione was carrying become a first-year one day? Would he actually have to interact with such a little beast on a daily basis? Merlin, he hoped not. Maybe it would be a perfect child, like him. That would be a good gene for it to inherit. 

He hoped it was a boy. 

At last all the first-years had taken their seats at the four tables and the food appeared. Draco suddenly found that he was starving, and proceeded to stuff himself in as dignified a manner as possible. 

And then, after the remnants of the food had disappeared and Dumbledore had made his usual uninspiring speech, Draco had to go and find Snape and tell him he wanted to resign from the Quidditch team. 

Slipping away unnoticed from Pansy, Blaise and the others, Draco cut through the throng of students and trudged down a couple of less crowded staircases to the gloomy, draughty passageway which housed Snape's office. He knocked on the door, but unsurprisingly there was no answer. Draco began to pace, waiting for his Head of House to return. 

Fortunately the wait was not long, and a few minutes later Snape swept down the stairs, his robes billowing behind him, his hair less so, and came to a halt in front of Draco with a raised eyebrow. 

"Mr Malfoy. What can I do for you?" he enquired, sounding, as always, rather unimpressed with the world in general. 

"I've come to resign from the Quidditch team, sir," Draco said with all the confidence he could muster. 

"I see." Snape went to unlock the door to his office, and Draco was half convinced that that was going to be the end of the conversation until Snape beckoned him inside. 

"I want to concentrate on my NEWTs," Draco continued. 

"Really," Snape said emotionlessly. Draco really hoped he hadn't somehow guessed the real reason, which was entirely possible. 

"Yes," Draco said. After a moment's silence he added, "Sir." 

"Very well. You may leave." 

"Right," Draco said, surprised that something so monumental could be so simple. "Er, thank you, sir." 

He left the office, and that was that. 

"Where have you been?" Pansy asked with only mild curiosity when Draco entered the common room a short while later. 

"To tell Snape I'm leaving the Quidditch team." There was no point in lying, and he couldn't think of anything more interesting anyway. 

"What?" Pansy looked confused. 

Draco sighed, stepped closer and spoke more slowly. "I am _leaving_ the _Quidditch_ team." 

"_Why?_" 

He lowered his voice. "Because there's not much point when there's not even going to be the _chance_ of us winning the Cup this year, is there?" 

"Oh," Pansy said, still looking rather perplexed. "Alright then." 

"Nice to have your permission. Goodnight, Pansy," Draco said, and went to his dormitory to nap until midnight. 

When he awoke again at ten to twelve, there was a party going on in the common room. 

Squinting in the glare from the bright, flashing lights, Draco swore under his breath. How were he, Pansy and Blaise supposed to reinforce the spell when there were all these people around? 

He needed some way to get everybody out for a few minutes without arousing suspicion. Maybe he could get Pansy and Blaise to have sex on the table? That might scare people away... But no, these were Slytherins. They would probably want to watch. 

What he really needed was for them all to think that there was something far more interesting going on elsewhere. And for them to think that, he would need Pansy. _Everyone_ would believe Pansy. 

He found her sat on Blaise's lap in one of the armchairs, looking like she was trying to remove his tonsils with her tongue. 

"Oy, Pansy." 

She didn't -- or wouldn't -- hear him. 

"Pansy!" He pinched her in the arm. 

"Ow! Draco!" 

"I need you to get these people out of here." 

She pouted. "Why me?" 

"Because you're the Queen of Gossip. Tell them Potter and his friends are out skinny-dipping in the lake." 

"But--" 

"_Now_. We've got to do the thing in seven minutes." 

"Fine." Still pouting, Pansy stood up and walked over to a group of girls. Seconds later, the girls were giggling gleefully and scattering around the room. The sounds of laughter increased as people began moving towards the door, and a few minutes later the room was empty but for Draco, Blaise and Pansy. 

Draco grinned to himself. People were so predictable. 

He took out his wand and motioned for the other two to join him. "Come on," he ordered, looking at his pocket watch. "It's almost time." 

They stood by the fireplace, wands at the ready, until Draco nodded. They tapped the stone three times. "_Infirmo_," they said together. 

Draco nodded. "Right. I'm going to bed." 

And he left them alone, a gesture he was sure they would appreciate -- probably loudly enough for him to hear them from his dormitory. 

The next morning after breakfast he was accosted by Joshua. 

"Draco, how come Bletchley reckons he's Quidditch Captain now?" the boy demanded. 

"Because I've resigned," Draco said shortly, trying to push through the crowd of students on their way out of the Great Hall. 

"What! _Why?_" 

Draco sighed, and wondered how many more people would ask him this question. "Because I want to concentrate on my NEWTs." 

"But what about the Cup? This is our last chance to win! Once you're gone we'll never be able to do it! You're the best player we've got." 

"And what exactly makes you think we would win this year when we haven't since _before_ I was on the team? For goodness' sake, get a grip." Draco finally managed to push his way onto the staircase, and fled upstairs to the Transfiguration classroom. 

He was one of the first to arrive, so he grabbed a seat at the back and leisurely unpacked his things as the other students began to arrive. He was just digging in his bag for a quill when a scrap of paper fell on his hand. Looking up, he saw Hermione walking along the aisle in front of him behind Potter and Weasley. Grinning, he grabbed the note, checked nobody was looking, and unfolded it. 

_Hurry lunch and meet me by the Restricted Section of the library._

Draco's grin grew wider, but he quickly hid it when Blaise sat down next to him. 

A couple of hours later he was grinning freely again, as there was nobody anywhere near the library, let alone the Restricted Section on the first day of school. Finally, after he had been standing there for a devastatingly long two and a half minutes, Hermione appeared. 

"Hello," she said, wrapping her arms around his neck and kissing him briefly on the lips. 

"Mmm," was all Draco could manage before he had to kiss her again, longer, properly. 

He felt her smile against his lips when they finally broke apart. "Guess what," she said. 

"What?" 

"They've given me my own room! I mean, it makes sense of course, it wouldn't be fair on the others to make them live with a baby, and it's not in Gryffindor Tower, but it's _huge_, Draco!" She grinned. "Do you want to see?" 

Draco shrugged in agreement. "Lead the way," he said, and she grabbed his hand and pulled him towards the door. 

"So this room is all yours, you say?" he asked 

"Yes." 

"As in, completely private." 

"Yes." 

They reluctantly released their grip on each other as they stepped out into the corridor. 

Draco leaned closer to her. "How big is the bed?" he asked in a low voice. 

This earned him a playful swat on the arm. 

As it turned out, the bed was huge, as was seemingly everything else -- the fireplace, the bookshelf, the desk, the two armchairs... 

Draco got up and jumped on the bed, purely to make Hermione giggle. 

"Draco, you'll break the springs!" she complained half-heartedly, in a feeble attempt to mask her laughter. 

He jumped into a sitting position and reached out to pull her onto the bed next to him. "I've got news too. Better news." 

"I don't believe you." 

"I have. I finally decided on that middle name thing." 

"Really?" Hermione did look pleasantly surprised. "Do tell." 

"Nero for a boy, Almeta for a girl." 

"Interesting choices." 

"Well, Nero means 'powerful' and Almeta means 'driven'. Both important traits in a Malfoy child." 

"Ah, but our baby isn't going to be a Malfoy child." 

"Maybe not by name, but it'll still have Malfoy blood. I bet you a million galleons it'll be sorted into Slytherin." 

"I'll take that bet. Power and drive can be as much Gryffindor attributes as they can Slytherin, you know." 

"If you say so." 

"I do." 

They narrowed their eyes at each other, grinning, before they kissed again.

* * *

**Author's Note: **To **Taintless**: I promise, promise, _promise_ I will finish this story. I'm just not very good with the whole "regular updates" thing, as you've probably noticed! 

Seriously, I've put way too much work into this to just leave it 2/3 done. Don't worry :) 


	25. Chapter 25

"Do you know, I don't think I've actually ever been in here before," Draco remarked as Hermione led him to a table in a back corner of Madam Puddifoot's tea shop. 

"Why am I not surprised?" Hermione asked, smiling. She sat down awkwardly -- Draco wondered for the umpteenth time how she managed to walk without toppling over with her stomach as big as it was now.

"You're_ sure _that Madam What's-She-Called won't tell anyone she saw us together?"

"Draco, Madam Puddifoot makes a living out of staying out of other people's business; all those couples wouldn't come here otherwise. Trust me."

"Well, what about all the other customers?"

"Any other students who bother to get up this early just to come in here will only be thinking about whoever it is that they've come with. They won't notice that anyone else is here, let alone who we are."

"Alright... I'm blaming you if it gets out, though."

"If that'll make you feel better."

"It will."

"And what will you be having, dearies?" Madam Thingamibob appeared by their table and looked at them both far too curiously for Draco's taste.

"Peppermint tea, thank you," said Hermione politely.

"Coffee. Black." Draco glared at the woman to make her go away.

"Coming right up." She smiled and left.

Ha. The Draco Malfoy Glare of Death had worked its magic yet again.

"Draco, why are you furrowing your brow like that?" asked Hermione.

"Like what?"

"Like you're trying to read a footnote that's in really small print."

"I'm not!"

"You were."

"Was not."

"If you say so." Hermione sighed and crossed her arms over her stomach.

Draco harrumphed and crossed his own arms, and they sat there in silence.

"I'm sorry," Hermione said after several seconds of picking at her fingernails in a rather unseemly manner. "I didn't get much sleep last night because the baby kept kicking my ribcage."

Draco nodded, trying to look like he understood and was sympathetic. "Does it hurt?"

"Sometimes... it's just irritating when it keeps you awake."

"I see."

"I'm starting to wish it would just hurry up and be born, really," said Hermione. "Which is a stupid thing to wish because I've got a lot of work to do for my NEWTs already and once the baby comes I probably won't have time to do _any_ of it, so I should work hard while I can, but... I don't know. I suppose I just feel like I've been waiting and preparing and anticipating for so long that I'm finding it hard to believe it's actually going to happen."

"Oh, it's definitely going to happen. And I'm quite content to wait as long as possible."

Hermione looked at him. "Draco... how do you really feel about all this? I mean, honestly."

He pondered this for a moment, then shook his head. "I really don't know." He shrugged. "I suppose we'll find out when it happens."

Still regarding him intensely, Hermione nodded. "Yes," she said. "I suppose we will."

They left seperately; Hermione first because she was more likely to be missed, then Draco half an hour later. When he walked up to the school gates Filch was there waiting for him.

"Ah, Mister Malfoy." Filch grinned his disgusting yellow-toothed grin. "You're to go straight to your common room."

"Why?" Draco asked, suddenly apprehensive.

"Not for me to say."

The creaking sound of the gates being locked made Draco feel trapped all of a sudden. But there was no choice but to obey.

The mood in the Slytherin common room was excited and, if Draco was reading it correctly, slightly apprehensive. This did not help his own suddenly disordered emotions, but he couldn't think about that right now. He had to find out what was going on.

He spotted a bunch of the other seventh-years by the fire and walked over to them. "What's all this about?" he asked quietly.

"They found a knife in the lake," said Pansy, who was sitting on Blaise's lap. "They said it had the Giant Squid's blood on it."

"That's impossible!" Draco hissed, willing what he said to be true. "Surely any blood would've been washed away?"

"Apparently it was buried at the bottom, in an air pocket," Blaise told him. "They only found it because the Merpeople were laying the foundation for a new house or something there."

"How the hell do you know all this?" Draco demanded. He did not like feeling so out of the loop.

"We were down by the lake when Sprout found it -- she was diving down there looking for some kind of plant for Madam Pomfrey," said Pansy. "They didn't see us because we were in that little... hidden bit..." She had to stifle a giggle; Draco didn't have to think hard to guess what she and Blaise had been doing down there.

"So what now?" he asked. He was hoping against hope that there would be no way anyone could connect the knife ot him.

Pansy shrugged. "They stopped letting people go to Hogsmeade about an hour ago. I think they're waiting for everyone who had already left to come back."

"I see."

So whatever was going to happen could happen quite soon -- Filch had locked that gates after him, which probably meant that Draco had been the last to return. Of course, he wasn't going to tell Pansy or Blaise that he had been in Hogsmeade this morning at all if he could help it... too many awkward questions.

"Well," he told them, "I might as well make a start on McGonagall's stupid essay while we wait." And he swept out of the room with all the panache he could muster.

Draco _had_ been looking forward to a relatively easy time this year as far as schoolwork was concerned; after all, if all went well Hogwarts would no longer exist by the time he was scheduled to sit his NEWTs. However -- as his rather had drilled relentlessly into his skull over the summer -- a noticeable drop in Draco's academic achievements would draw attention, and from there it was only a small step to suspicion, which was something he could really do without. Therefore, he did at least need to put _some_ effort into his schoolwork.

Draco sighed as he got out his books and an empty roll of parchment and wondered why he had ever decided to take Transfiguration at NEWT level.

Still, maybe it would at least keep his mind over the tight knot of worry his intestines now seemed to be weaving themselves into. He had completely forgotten about losing the knife until Pansy had told him it had been found... He only hoped they wouldn't be able to trace it back to him. Everything would be ruined.

The Dark Lord would kill him. If his father didn't get him first.

Draco shuddered, and realised he had dug his quill into his palm so far he had drawn blood.

"Dammit," he said, reaching over to wipe it on Crabbe's bed.

"Hello Draco!" said an unpleasantly cheerful voice.

Joshua Fizzlewinch practically bounced into the room.

"Don't you know how to knock?" Draco growled, turning his back and bending over his parchment in an effort to look extremely busy.

Joshua ignored all of this completely and eagerly sat down opposite Draco. "I've just had the most brilliant idea."

"I'm busy, Joshua."

"I've been meaning to ask you for ages, but things kept getting in the way... but now is the perfect opportunity!" He paused in case Draco wanted to make a guess as to what he was talking about, but carried on unperturbed when the only response he got was an annoyed silence. "There'll be no one on the Quidditch pitch because it's meant to be a Hogsmeade Saturday, so you could come out with me and help me with my aim and technique and--"

"_No_, Joshua! Just _go away_ and leave me the fuck alone! Alright?"

Joshua looked like he was about to burst into tears. "But..."

"Go!" Draco snarled, standing up menacingly. He had really had enough of this boy, and didn't see why he should have to put up with him any longer when the only thing they now had in common was that they were both in Slytherin... not that Draco could for the life of him work out what Slytherin traits Jaoshua might posess. He had enough to worry about without Joshua's smarminess making him want to hurt someone.

Joshua, who had frozen in shock at Draco's last utterance, now stood up, trembling. "Fine!" he cried, and ran out of the room faster than Draco would have believed was possible.

Draco sighed and let himself fall back on his bed. What had started as an alright sort of day really wasn't turning out very well.

Thankfully nothing bad happened for the rest of it, although the coil of nerves in Draco's abdomen tightened steadily over the hours and was almost too much to bear by the time the dessert plates disappeared from the tables in the Great Hall that evening. Surely Dumbledore was about to tell the students to wait, was about to make some kind of speech about the knife in the lake like he had about the Hufflepuff girl a few months ago?

But he didn't.

Draco gasped involuntarily when people began to file out of the Hall. He knew his relief was premature -- he might still be called to Dumblesore's office at any time -- but somehow it felt as if the worst of the hurdles was behind him.

"Are you alright?" asked Millicent, obviously having heard his gasp.

"I'm fine," he said, waving a hand dismissively. "I just... swallowed something wrong."

Millicent nodded and walked off after Pansy, obviously hoping for some attention before she fell back into Blaise's arms (or, more likely, his bed.) Draco himself fled up several flights of stairs to Hermione's room as quickly as he could without being noticed.

She was already there when knocked carefully on the door -- when he went inside at her invitation she was sat on the bed, furrowing her brow.

"Is something wrong?" he asked uncertainly.

She shook her head. "No," she said, coming out of her reverie and standing up. "Just thinking about things. Do _you_ know why they stopped the Hogsmeade visits today?"

"Yes," Draco said automatically.

It took Hermione's look of surprise to make him realise what he'd just said. Mentally, he swore.

"You do?" asked Hermione. "Why was it?"

"I can't tell you," Draco said, turning away.

"Why not?"

"I just _can't,_ alright?" he said, more harshly than he had intended.

The hurt look on Hermione's face made his stomach sink. "Maybe I should go," he mumbled, reaching for the door.

"No," Hermione said, grabbing his hand before it could reach the handle. "Come on, lie down with me."

Draco obeyed because it was the easiest thing to do. The two of them lay on their sides, facing each other.

Hermione ran a hand pensively over her stomach for a moment before looking up at him. "I've been thinking," she said. "If the baby's a girl I think I'm going to name it Hazel after my grandmother."

"Oh." It was all Draco could think of to say for a moment; and then a burning need for some kind of confession suddenly, inexplicably gripped him. "Hermione, you know when you told me you thought she'd been killed by Death Eaters?"

Hermione stared at him, obviously trying to fathom why he would be bringing this up now. "Yes."

"Well..." Draco suddenly found that he didn't want to look at her, but forced himself to do so anyway. "You were right."

"What makes you say that?" Hermione asked wearily, unconsciously -- at least, Draco hoped it was unconsciously -- shifting further away from him on the bed.

Draco grimaced, all of a sudden wishing he could back out... but it was too late for that. "I found those newspaper clippings in your desk. I recognised the girls in the article. I saw them in-- In someone's dungeon."

Hermione let out a kind of squeaking sound from the back of her throat, looking at him with eyes wider than he had ever seen. "You... Y-you..." Then she gasped and her head snapped around in the direction of her hips.

There was a large damp patch spreading underneath her.

"Drat!" she cried, sitting up and taking in her sodden clothes. "I knew it!"

Now it was Draco's turn to gape. "You, you... What's going on!"

Hermione took him by the arm and guided him firmly off the bed and towards the door.

"I'm in labour," she said. "You'd better go."

* * *

**Author's Note:** To soccerpixie3000: Where the _hell_ do you get off leaving me a review like that? Lazy, am I? Update 'whenever I bloody feel like it', do I? Where's _your_ story that you update with 2000+ word chapters at least twice a week, eh? Writing fanfiction is my _hobby_, not, as you seem to think it should be, my main focus in life. Believe it or not, I do have more important things to do, as well as having more than one story that I'm currently working on (and no, abandoning my 24 story would _not_ lead to this fic being updated more frequently), and when I _do_ write I'm not going to make a rush job out of it just so I can meet some ridiculous quota of how many chapters I should post per week. I've been writing fanfic for six and a half years, something I seriously doubt can be said of you, and I'm not going to change the way I do things just because some arrogant little girl with no stories of her own insults me. Don't read WIPs if you haven't got the patience to wait for the next chapter, learn the definition of the word 'review' (hint: it involves discussing the _content_ of the story), and for God's sake, get a life. 

To all my other reviewers: I love you guys! Thanks to you, I now have more reviews on this story than on any of my others! Thank you so much for all your comments, and I hope you continue to enjoy the story (but please tell me if you don't!) :)

and to Taintless: You're awesome, thank you so much for all your many, many reviews and compliments. And you should watch 24, it's great:D


	26. Chapter 26

Draco found himself standing outside Hermione's room with his mouth hanging open for what seemed like an eternity after she had gone off to ask Potter and Weasley to take her to the hospital wing.

_I must be on the edge of a nervous breakdown,_ he thought. _Too many thoughts to process._

However, eventually he managed to kick-start his brain into making his feet move back in the direction of the Slytherin common room, which was at least something.

But he had practically told Hermione that he was a Death Eater! What was he _thinking_? She obviously hated him now, and his father would _kill_ him if he ever found out... What good could he have possibly thought might come out of such a confession?

In his mind, Draco threw himself repeatedly over a ragged cliff edge, but even that didn't seem quite enough of a punishment.

And on top of that, Hermione was about to have his child. He wasn't sure if the timing of this was the worst or best possible.

They had agreed that no matter how much she might want him there, there was no way he could be with her for the birth. Which had initially come as a relief to him -- after all, why _wouldn't_ he want to miss something Hermione had told him involved a lot of pain and screaming and sweating -- but now, as he found himself trudging downstairs to the common room, he couldn't help wondering what exactly was going on all the way on the other side of the castle in the hospital wing. He wondered if everything was going alright, and how you could tell if it was. He had heard of people _dying_ in childbirth... Why had he not thought to mention this to Hermione?

Unable to think of anything else to do to help ease his mind, Draco fetched his homework from his dormitory and joined the others working by the fire. However, he soon found that he couldn't concentrate even on the tasks he could normally do without thinking. His mind was just too overwhelmed.

He decided to go to the library for some peace and quiet.

He was half tempted to make a detour via the hospital wing, but Hermione would probably have Potter and Weasley there with her and would kill Draco if he showed his face. So he made his way to the library, hardly aware of how slowly he was walking, and, carefully avoiding Madam Pince lest she harass him about returning his books on time -- which he always _did_, so her infrequent but persistent reminders were beyond annoying -- sat down in a corner.

He stared into space for a while before the title of a book on the shelf opposite caught his eye:

_Keeping Up Appearances: How to Gain and Keep Respect_

An ironic chuckle escaped Draco's throat. Yes. Right. Respect. He wondered if anyone had any respect for him at all anymore. His father certainly didn't. Draco hadn't received one letter from him since he'd been back at Hogwarts. He usually wrote at least _occasionally_ to tell Draco he had to do better in this or that subject, but now... nothing. If Draco had any siblings he was sure his father would have disowned him by now.

Draco stood up and ran a finger down the spine of the book. This was where he'd found the virgin-detecting spell, what seemed like years ago now. If Hermione didn't want to brutally murder him already, she certainly would if she ever found out about _that_.

For the first time, it seemed to sink in just how many secrets he was trying to keep.

Different secrets from different people, for different reasons, in different ways. The simple grouping of all people into friends and foes which had been all he needed for so long was now, Draco realised, completely inaccurate. Hermione, who used to be firmly in the 'foe' category, was now the only other person to know one of the greatest secrets he kept. His father, however, who usually was the one who told Draco his biggest secrets in the first place, was completely in the dark, and would have to remain that way forever if Draco didn't want to have to pay dearly.

Draco was hiding his involvement with Hermione from both his friends and family and his greatest enemies. He was keeping the spell from Crabbe and Goyle, in whom he had confided everything only a year or two ago, and from Hermione, who -- yes, fine, he would admit it -- he was terrified that he might be in love with.

Everything was so complicated, with tendrils of trust and secrecy stretching and bending into places they had never been before, growing thinner and closer to breaking the further they went, and surely eventually everything would snap and break and crumble from the stress.

_No._

It couldn't. It wouldn't. He could control it, he could keep it coherent and contained and together. He had to.

Shaking his head, Draco began walking through the shelves, looking for a book, any book, which might be engrossing enough to distract him from such disturbing thoughts. He found himself in the _Health & Mediwizardry_ section and his eyes rested on a book called _Pregnancy and Childbirth_.

Despite himself, he picked it up.

He took the book over to a table next to a small window and opened it at a random page.

He saw the words 'mucus plug', read enough to know more or less what they meant, and shut the book again quickly.

It seemed pregnancy was far more disgusting than he had thought.

He looked out at the sky, from which rain had begun to drizzle, and sighed. Eventually a kind of sickened curiosity got the better of him and he opened the book again, closer to the back this time.

Printed on the page was a simple drawing of a tiny baby, nursing at its mother's breast.

Draco stared at it, mesmerised.

He wondered how long it would take for Hermione to have the baby, and if she would then feed it like this, with only a sheet to preserve her modesty, and the child naked and perfect in her arms.

Probably not.

It was too cold to just be wearing a sheet, for one thing.

Looking out at the rain again, Draco realised that it had also been dark outside for rather a long time. Glancing at his pocketwatch, he saw that it was almost eleven o'clock.

Perhaps he should return to his dormitory and try to get some sleep.

With one last look at the picture, Draco closed the book and put it back on the shelf before heading downstairs.

Sleep, however, proved practically impossible, and not just due to Goyle's loud snoring or the suspiciously female noises coming from behind the closed curtains of Blaise's bed.

Had the baby been born yet, with Hermione now sleeping peacefully? Or was she going to be awake all night in agony? If so, how much longer would the whole thing take? Draco wasn't quite sure what kind of timeframe to expect for this... he should have asked Hermione before she had gone, or looked it up in that book earlier...

In the end he drifted off into a rather restless sleep, and was woken several times by the imagined sound of a baby crying.

In the morning at breakfast Draco was bleary-eyed and couldn't seem to keep himself from yawning. He chewed almost automatically on his slice of toast, eyes fixed on the Gryffindor table across the Hall, where Hermione was nowhere to be seen.

Potter and the two youngest Weasleys arrived late, looking even more tired than Draco felt. They gulped down some eggs on toast seemingly without swallowing and disappeared right out of the Hall again, no doubt hurrying back to Hermione's side.

Oh, how Draco envied them. He wondered for the thousandth time what exactly was going on in the hospital wing, which had somehow overnight been transformed in his head into a mystical fantasy land somewhere far away rather than a place he could walk to in under five minutes if he didn't want to incur Hermione's wrath.

The famous Gryffindor trio was also conspicuously absent in the double Transfiguration lesson that morning. Draco sat with Blaise, totally unresponsive to the latter's attempts at conversation, and stared at the empty desk across the room where Hermione usually sat with that expression of endless concentration on her face as she scribbled notes at a fearsome speed and somehow still managed to put her hand up to answer every single one of Professor McGonagall's questions.

Draco's own notes for this particular lesson mainly consisted of long squiggley lines meant to represent Hermione's hair. He dared not draw more of her lest somebody recognise that he was thinking about her.

Unfortunately, McGonagall noticed that he was not paying the remotest bit of attention to what she was actually saying. "Mr Malfoy!" her voice suddenly echoed sharply somewhere above his head, and he looked up to see that she was standing right next to him. "Kindly stop daydreaming and pay attention, if you please."

"Yes, Professor," Draco murmured, cutting the creation of his umpteenth artistically drawn hair short. Still, he could not for the life of him understand any of what McGonagall consequently continued saying, and he knew any notes he took were bound to seem like incomprehensible nonsense when he looked at them later. His mind kept drifting back to Hermione...

After somehow surviving the rest of Transfiguration and then twiddling his thumbs nervously for most of his Defence against the Dark Arts lesson, Draco decided that he would skip lunch and sneak up to the hospital wing to see what exactly was going on.

The sound of an infant crying echoed down the corridor even as he approached.

Draco suddenly felt dizzy and... well, _terrified_, and seriously considered running right back downstairs. However, in the end his pride got the better of him. After all, what would his father say if Draco told him he had run away from his own child?

...Actually, considering the circumstances his father would probably applaud him for that small show of good judgement before killing him violently due to those very circumstances, but that was neither here nor there.

Swallowing, he crept slowly along the wall and peered carefully around the door to the hospital wing.

He could see Potter, the two Weasleys and Madam Pomfrey all standing by a bed with their backs to him, and half obscured behind Madam Pomfrey was the back of Hermione's head, resting on a pile of propped-up pillows.

"Careful now, Mr Weasley," Madam Pomfrey said gently, and Draco realised with a start that _Ronald Weasley_ was holding his child. He just about had a heart attack, and almost lost his grip on the door frame and fell head-first into the room.

"She's beautiful, Hermione," Ginny Weasley said.

She. A girl, then.

"Yeah," said the red-headed idiot currently entrusted with Draco's offspring. "So, I don't suppose you'd like to tell us who the father is now?"

"Ron, for the last time, it's none of your business," said Hermione's voice tiredly. "I'm not telling you or anybody else, and that's final."

"Say," said Potter, "It's not Malfoy, is it? Only her hair does look a bit... blonde..."

There was a pause. "Don't be obscene, Harry," said Hermione. "_My_ hair was blonde when I was little."

Potter sighed with relief. "Just checking."

Feeling ever-so-slightly insulted and seeing that there was no point in staying here at the moment, Draco withdrew and began walking down to the Great Hall to see if he could scoff down a sandwich or two before Charms.

So. A girl.

Damn. He had really been hoping it would be a boy. At least he had some experience with small boys, having obviously once been one (and an exemplary one too, if he said so himself), but a girl... that was just completely foreign to him. He only hoped Hermione would know what to do with it.

No, not it. Her.

Hazel Almeta Granger, his daughter. With his hair colour and everything.

Draco suddenly found that he wasn't very hungry after all.

However, Potter and his Weasley minions obviously were, as only moments later they traipsed down the stairs past him -- ignoring him completely, of course.

Draco turned to look back up the staircase.

If they had left, maybe it meant that Hermione was alone now...

Making the decision quickly before he could bottle out, Draco made his way back to the hospital wing.

"Can I hold her again?" he heard Hermione ask as he once again poked his head around the door just enough to see what was going on.

"Of course, you can, dear," said Madam Pomfrey, bending down to carefully place the white bundle of blankets she was holding into Hermione's waiting arms. Hermione looked exhausted but exceedingly happy as she gazed down at the child.

"Now, I'm just going to go and tell Professor McGonagall that everything went well," Madam Pomfrey told her. "I won't be long, but if you need anything just call for me. The walls will pick it up."

Hermione nodded, not looking up as Madam Pomfrey left the room.

For his part, Draco rushed to hide around the next corner and then, when he was sure she was gone, entered the hospital wing.

"Hermione," he said quietly as he approached.

At this she did look up. "Draco," she said, her face breaking into a grin.

He found himself returning the smile, and pulled up a chair by her bed a little nervously.

"We did it," Hermione said. "Look at her, she's here..."

Draco stood up again, and leaned over the bed to meet his child.

Her hair was indeed an almost white shade of blonde, very similar to his own. It was also rather curly -- he presumed these were Hermione's genes asserting themselves -- and there was a lot more of it than he would have expected. Her face was bright pink and completely scrunched up, including her eyes, which were closed. Her nose was the tiniest he had ever seen, as was the single hand peeking out from underneath the mass of blankets she was wrapped in. Draco marvelled at her minuscule fingernails.

"Isn't she perfect..." Hermione sighed. She looked at him. "Do you want to hold her?"

Draco stepped back, terrified. "Er, no," he said.

Hermione looked hurt. "Why not?"

"What if I drop her?"

Hermione tutted, dismissing this concern as if it was of no consequence. "You won't. Come on, take her." She began to hold the child out to him, and Draco impulsively reached out to catch her lest _Hermione_ drop her.

Hermione let go, and Draco was left crouching over the bed with their daughter in his arms. She seemed to weigh barely anything.

Hazel Almeta Granger opened her dark blue eyes and looked at her father.

Then a sudden gasp sounded behind him, followed almost immediately by one from Hermione.

Draco craned his neck to see without having to move his body. Then he froze.

Madam Pomfrey and Professor McGonagall were standing in the doorway, looking just as shocked as him and Hermione.

"Professor, Madam Pomfrey..." Hermione implored. "_Please_, you mustn't tell anyone!"

This seemed to snap at least Professor McGonagall out of it; she strode into the room. "Is he the father?" she enquired incredulously of Hermione, coming to a stop on the opposite side of the bed to Draco with her robes billowing angrily. Madam Pomfrey followed more slowly, wringing her hands.

Hermione nodded. "Yes."

McGonagall stared at Draco, who barely dared to look back. "Well..." she declared almost to herself. "Well I never..."

"Professor, please," Hermione pleaded again, "Please don't tell anyone, for all our sakes..."

"Who else knows?" McGonagall demanded.

Hermione shook her head. "Just my parents, and they don't really understand..."

"My parents mustn't find out," Draco declared vehemently.

Professor McGonagall looked from one to the other, looking slightly overwhelmed by the situation. She shook her head. "Very well," she said. "If that's what you want, I'm not going to disrespect your privacy."

"Nor I," said Madam Pomfrey.

"Oh, thank you Professor, Madam Pomfrey...!" Draco was sure Hermione would be kneeling at their feet by now if she weren't confined to a hospital bed.

Draco himself merely shrugged his shoulders in a restricted but vaguely thankful manner.

McGonagall nodded.

There was a silence. Draco shifted his position uncomfortably.

"May I see the child?" McGonagall enquired at last, in a much softer tone than Draco had ever heard from her before.

He looked at Hermione, who nodded.

Carefully, he stood up straight as McGonagall circled the bed and came towards him. She reached out gently to touch his daughter's cheek.

"She's delightful," McGonagall said. "Congratulations."

"Thank you," said Hermione.

The professor nodded again, and she and Madam Pomfrey disappeared into the adjacent office, closing the door behind them.

Draco and Hermione looked at each other.

"Well..." said Hermione.

"Do you really think they won't tell anyone?" Draco asked, gingerly sitting back down. The baby seemed to have gone back to sleep.

Hermione nodded. "I don't see why they would."

"Even Dumbledore?"

"_Maybe_ Dumbledore, but knowing him he's probably worked it out already."

"Hmm."

Hermione leaned back against the pillows, blinking slowly. She really looked as though she was about to fall asleep. But, Draco realised, there was something he needed to ask her first.

"Hermione?"

"Mm-hmm?"

"You know... what I told you last night..."

She looked at him more intently. "Yes."

"You don't... you don't hate me or anything now, do you?"

"Draco..." Hermione shook her head slowly. "I'm not sure I could ever go back to just hating you. And all that stuff... that stuff which makes you the worst possible person for me to be with, let alone have a child with... well, in the end it's all just stuff. I tried being without you, remember? It didn't work. Because without you I just feel... broken."

Draco didn't know quite what to say to this. He settled for "...Oh."

Hermione smiled. "Come on, you'd better give her back to me or you'll be late for Charms."

He did as he was told. "Bye then," he said, leaning over to give Hermione a quick kiss. He was about to turn around and leave when he changed his mind.

Gently, he took his daughter's tiny pink hand between his fingers and kissed it.

"See you soon, Hazel."

On his way to the Charms classroom, he couldn't stop a grin from spreading over his face.


	27. Chapter 27

"You'd better go," said Hermione.

"I know, but I don't want to..." Draco replied, leaning in to kiss her again instead.

Hermione smiled -- a smile which quickly turned to laughter when Hazel woke up and began to cry. "Perfect timing, as ever..." Hermione said, pulling away and climbing over to the other side of her bed to retrieve their daughter from her cradle.

Draco moved to sit behind her, looking down at Hazel over her shoulder. "I can't believe I'm not going to see you for so long."

"It's only a few weeks, Draco..."

"It feels like forever."

"I know."

Hazel gurgled.

Hermione smiled and held her up to face Draco. "Are you saying goodbye to your daddy, Hazel?"

Draco held his arms out to take her. "I'm sorry I've got to go," he told his daughter. "I'll see you soon, I promise." Reluctantly, he gave her back to Hermione. "I'll see you soon, too," he said, standing up.

Hermione followed him to the door and kissed him goodbye. "Merry Christmas."

"Yeah," said Draco. "You too."

He left.

Walking back down to the Slytherin common room, Draco sighed. He wasn't looking forward to going home, but his father had demanded it, and Draco knew better than to refuse to obey his father. Hermione had invited him to spend Christmas with her and her parents, something Draco was sure would have been a lot more fun than the couple of weeks he was going to have to spend being constantly criticised and scolded for not being perfect. On top of this, his father had invited many of Draco's fellow Slytherins to spend the holidays at the manor as well, honing their skills with various bits of magic which would be useful in the coming war, and Draco was sure he was going to be humiliated in front of them as much as his father could possibly manage. His mother might provide him with some solace, but for the most part she would certainly side with her husband.

Draco gritted his teeth, wishing there was somebody he could complain about these things to, but Hermione would be horrified and anybody else would ridicule him. He was just going to have to grin and bear it.

He ignored the other people in the Slytherin common room when he arrived downstairs and went straight to his dormitory to begin packing his trunk.

There wasn't really that much to pack; there was no point in taking much homework with him as he doubted he would have much spare time, given that his father obviously now thought him completely inept and would probably be making him practise the Unforgivable Curses for most of the holidays. What time he would have to himself he certainly didn't want to spend writing essays for McGonagall... besides, maybe she would cut him some slack now that she knew about him and Hermione...

Neither McGonagall nor Madam Pomfrey had mentioned the incident since it had happened, and Draco had no idea whether or not they had kept their promise of secrecy. He could only hope that they had, and pray that word wouldn't somehow get back to his father...

Draco shook his head and threw a final pair of socks into his trunk before slamming it shut. Then he got into bed and fantasised about Hermione to distract himself from the queasy sensation he seemed to get every time he thought about going home, until he eventually fell asleep.

It was still dark outside when he had to get up for breakfast, and he had no doubt that it would be dark again by the time he got home. Most of his daylight hours today were going to be spent on the train, trying not to feel bored _or_ queasy. He was not looking forward to it.

The Great Hall was full of people chattering excitedly about going home, exchanging gifts and cards over their toast and porridge and generally grinning in an idiotically happy fashion. All this good cheer only made Draco's mood darker -- he would much have preferred to be staying at Hogwarts over Christmas, as his father had sometimes let him do in the past, but alas, this year that was not to be.

He picked at his food, not feeling remotely hungry, and gazed longingly across the room to where Hermione was sitting at the Gryffindor table. She was holding Hazel with one arm and trying to spread jam on a slice of toast with the hand of the other, whilst at the same time laughing at something Potter had said.

Draco sighed enviously.

Breakfast was over all too quickly, and soon Draco was heading down to the carriages with the rest of the students. He had hoped to catch a glimpse of Hermione here, as well, and perhaps to get in a carriage close to her, but it was snowing too heavily for him to be able to see more than a few feet in front of him. The snowflakes landed on his unprotected face and neck before melting and sending ice cold water trickling down underneath his robes, so that by the time he did sit down in a carriage with Pansy, Blaise, Crabbe and Goyle he was not only feeling rather sullen but also extremely uncomfortable. A quick charm took care of the damp, but he was still devilishly cold as he looked out at the sheet of white created by the rapidly falling snow.

He did not speak to his companions at all during the short ride down to Hogsmeade, and when they reached the station he boarded the train as soon as he could and sought out the prefects' carriage. He was the first one there and hoped vaguely that Hermione might arrive next, but this hope was shattered almost before it was formed by Zacharias Smith entering the compartment. His only acknowledgement of Draco's presence was a frosty stare.

Hermione was in fact the last one to arrive, and was greeted by various faint noises of disapproval from several directions. She swallowed and stood opposite Draco while the Head Boy and Girl gave out duties.

Draco and Hermione maintained eye contact for the entire session but could do nothing else to communicate with each other. There was a strand of hair falling over her face and Draco longed to reach out and tuck it behind her ears, but he dared not even smile, let alone touch her. It was agony.

At last the prefects dispersed and Draco risked giving her hand a quick, secretive squeeze before they parted. Later he was glad of this small gesture, as when he finally stepped off the train and onto the lamp-lit darkness of the platform at Kings Cross he only saw her and Hazel briefly from a distance before they both went their separate ways. He wasn't sure she had seen him at all.

When Draco arrived home he secluded himself in his room as soon as was politely possible, and spent most of his free time there over the following days as well. He had no desire to socialise with Pansy, Blaise or the others while his father was around, making Draco look bad and frightening them into agreeing with everything he said. His mood seemed to darken whenever he set eyes on his son, and even if Draco outperformed all the others at whichever spell they happened to be working on his father would berate him and tell him to do better. There were no more satisfied nods and silent hands resting on Draco's shoulder -- everything he did was wrong, pathetic, not up to scratch. When Draco walked past his father in the hall or sat down at the dining table he was not acknowledged at all by either of his parents, although he suspected that his mother's taking part in this was only due to his father's instructions. She would still smooth his hair or brush a speck of dust off his sleeve if they had a moment alone together; silent gestures of affection which were much appreciated.

Draco's bedroom was his sanctuary. Although his father would make him go downstairs to practise this or that at any time of night, he always sent a house elf to get him and never entered Draco's room himself. Draco spent hours lying in the bath, reading and replying to long letters from Hermione -- letters he made sure to burn once he was finished with them. It pained him to do it, but it was a small price to pay for secrecy from his father.

It was soon Christmas eve, and Draco was not looking forward to the next day with much enthusiasm. He was certain there would be no presents from his father; on the contrary, he expected to be made to work extra hard just to drive home the point that he was useless and stupid and unable to master anything. He supposed he might get a trinket or two from his mother, or perhaps Blaise or Pansy, but they would have to be given in secret, away from his father's coldly furious eyes.

He sat at the table in the dining room waiting to be excused, silently anticipating a torturous morrow. Thus he was surprised when his father looked up at the assembled students and announced:

"Tomorrow you will all devote yourselves to solitary study. My wife and I will be at a meeting until late at night, but I expect you all to have improved in your problem areas when I return. Tomorrow is _not _a day off." He looked around the table to make sure they had all understood, then leaned back in his chair. "You are dismissed."

Draco left and climbed the staircase in a state of pleasant shock. Had his father really just said that? He and his mother wouldn't be there _at all _tomorrow?

He walked into his room and practically jumped onto the bed, lying on his back and grinning to himself. His grin grew even wider when he looked out onto the balcony and saw that his owl was sitting on the railing with an envelope.

The owl looked up when Draco went to open the door, and pecked impatiently at the glass to be let in. Once inside, he landed on Draco's bed, demanding food.

Draco absentmindedly called for a house elf to attend to the bird, tearing the envelope open as he fell back onto the bed.

It was a Christmas card from Hermione.

_Dear Draco,_

_Merry Christmas!_

_much love,_

_Hermione & Hazel_

_P.S. We both miss you terribly._

Draco smiled wistfully, wishing that he could see them.

And then the smile turned into the widest grin ever to grace his impeccably formed face when he realised that he could.

He could leave right now! But no, better to wait until morning to be sure his father wouldn't send for him while he wasn't there. What time would they leave? His father had said they would be away all day, but what did that mean? Would he be free by seven? Eight? Nine?

Draco resolved to go to bed right away and to wake up early enough to see them leave. They would almost certainly Apparate, but they always left the door to their bedroom wide open if they weren't in it -- something about showing they had nothing to hide. He would just have to periodically walk down the hall and see if the door was still closed. Better check the dining room, too, in case they were having breakfast, but there wasn't really anywhere else in the house they might go before they left.

Draco changed into his pyjamas in a flash and crawled under the covers. He fidgeted for about quarter of an hour, restless with apprehension and excitement, until he remembered something.

If he was going to see Hermione for Christmas, she was going to need a present.

And he had absolutely no idea what to give her.

He sat up.

Well... what did she like? Books, obviously, but had he got any books that she hadn't read and would be interested in?

Draco scrambled out of bed an looked at his bookshelf.

There were all his old school books -- she was bound to have every single one of them. A lot of space was taken up with various volumes on weapons and Quidditch, neither of which Hermione was likely to appreciate much. All the fiction he had seemed to be action and adventure stuff, none of it very girly. There were a few history books, but most were written with a decidedly anti-Muggle slant, which put them out of the question.

Stuffed into the very corner was a book his father had bought him to help improve his schoolwork. Draco took it out, scrutinising it.

_Uncommon Potions and Charms_, the book was called.

It was perfect. Draco only hoped that she hadn't read it already.

Now, what did Hazel like?

Fortunately that question was answered far more easily; she liked colourful things with moving parts. Draco found an old teddy bear stuffed into the back of a drawer, cleaned it up a bit and enchanted it to change colour and dance in place.

There.

Now, sleep.

Although he still found himself tossing and turning a lot, Draco must have eventually fallen asleep, because he was very suddenly and rudely awakened by his alarm. He groaned and checked the time.

Six o'clock. Far too early for any truly civilised person to be awake, but you never knew where Death Eaters were concerned...

Draco forced himself out of bed and put on his dressing gown and stumbling as quietly as he could down the hallway. It was still dark outside.

The door to his parents' bedroom turned out to be shut, which meant that they were in there, so he turned right back around and fell back into bed, re-setting the alarm to an hour later.

He found himself unable to fall back to sleep despite not having had nearly enough of it, so by the time seven o'clock arrived he was quite eager to get out of bed, hoping against hope that when his father had said 'all day' he had really meant it.

Draco stood up and reached for his dressing gown -- only to remember that he was already wearing it. Glad that he had had no witnesses to this moment of idiocy, he again walked out into the hall. Tiptoeing along it to the master bedroom, the expensive burgundy carpet tickling his bare feet, he fancied he heard voices...

And then he was almost knocked senseless by the door to his parents' bedroom suddenly being swung open, its momentum carrying it to a spot mere inches from his face. Draco's breath caught in his throat, and he froze lest whoever was standing behind the door should realise that he was there.

"I only hope that Draco conducts himself properly on his own, and that he doesn't make a fool of himself as seems his custom these nowadays," he heard his father say from somewhere inside the bedroom.

"Oh Lucius, must you be so hard on him?" Draco's mother's voice came from somewhere a lot closer; probably mere feet away. "He made one mistake. He was under a lot of pressure, surely he doesn't deserve to be treated quite so harshly?"

"It's the only way he'll learn, Narcissa. I will not have a weakling for a son. Now, are you ready?"

"Yes, dear."

"Good; let us depart, then. We don't wish to keep the Dark Lord waiting."

"No, indeed."

There was the loud CRACK of somebody Disapparating, and Draco allowed himself to breathe out.

Well. Now that they had gone, he could, too.

Returning to his room, Draco shut the door firmly and got dressed as quickly as possible. He briefly considered Apparating to his destination himself, but to be honest with himself he still wasn't very comfortable with that mode of transport. He would hate to arrive on Hermione's doorstep with a leg or an eyeball missing, and it had been so long since he'd last been out flying...

Decision made and making sure not to forget the Christmas presents he had so carefully chosen the night before, Draco took his best broomstick from its sacred position by his bed and set off.

The sun was just beginning to rise when he arrived, and everybody seemed to still be asleep -- the Grangers were obviously sensible people when it came to these things. Draco let himself in through Hermione's window and lay his broom against the wall.

The light was dim, but he could clearly make out her form lying in the bed under an assortment of covers, none of which, thank goodness, seemed to be pink this time. Opposite the bed by the desk there was now a cradle in which a slumbering Hazel was beginning to stir, probably disturbed in her sleep by Draco's presence.

Sensing that she was about to wake up fully and start to cry, Draco swept her up into his arms -- but it was too late. Hazel's gentle whimpering had already awoken her mother.

"Draco..." Hermione said, smiling before she even opened her eyes.

Draco took Hazel and sat down on the bed as Hermione sat up. "Hello."

"You came after all," she said, leaning on his shoulder and gazing down at Hazel.

Draco shrugged -- a movement which caused Hermione to swat him lightly for dislodging her chin. "I had an unexpected opportunity to escape."

Hermione moved around to kiss him. "Well, I'm glad you took it."

He smiled. "So am I."

Christmas with the Grangers was a brand new experience.

There were none of the strict rules Draco was used to when it came to... well, anything. The traditional Christmas dinner did not include brussel sprouts as none of the Grangers cared for them, nor a turkey as they all found that the hassle of preparing one was not worth the mediocre-tasting meal they would be rewarded with. However, all three of the adult Grangers -- and Draco, out of some kind of sense of duty -- took turns all morning at mixing and stirring and beating the brandy butter into smooth, creamy submission, because according to Hermione "pudding with brandy butter was the best part of Christmas." There was no timetable of activities, no 'stroll around the grounds after lunch then open presents' doctrine; indeed, presents were opened as soon as everyone was dressed and had eaten breakfast.

Hermione was delighted with her present. "Oh, I've been wanting to read this for ages!" she exclaimed. "I thought they would have it in the library, but when I asked Madam Pince she said they didn't because all the information was better represented in various other books, but I was looking through this in Diagon Alley once and there are several potions which aren't explored in as much detail in _any_ of the books in the library..." Hermione seemed to realise that she was beginning to babble and stopped her diatribe with a smile. "Thank you," she said. "I got you something too, even though you said you weren't coming." She produced a small, gift-wrapped package. "It not much, and it's a bit silly, but I thought it might be useful."

Draco took the present. It was obvious that it was a book before he even opened it, although a very small one...

He removed the wrapping paper to reveal a small tome entitled _The Little Book of Calm_.

Hermione grinned. "I think you're the kind of person who can use a little calm from time to time." As she said this, Hazel began squirming and complaining in her arms, and she laughed. "Speaking of people who aren't calm..." She shifted Hazel's position so that she could bounce her gently on her knee.

"Maybe this will distract her..." Draco said, producing the colour-changing bear. As soon as he placed the toy on the floor it began to dance merrily.

Hazel stared, dribbling absent-mindedly on her tiny Christmas dress.

"Well, I think this is a great success!" Hermione declared. "Has he got a name?"

Draco shrugged. "Not that I know of."

Hermione tutted light-heartedly. "But Draco, all special toys should have names! Let's see... should we call him something simple, like 'Bob', or something a little complicated, like 'Constantine'?"

He laughed. "Constantine sounds fine to me."

"Then Constantine it is. A fine name for a bear, if I do say so myself."

They smiled, and kissed happily.

Alas, the hours seemed to pass far too quickly, and soon it was dark again, and not only was Draco becoming increasingly tired, but anxious to get back before his parents got back and found him inexplicably absent. He regretfully said goodbye to Hermione's parents, who had been nothing but nice to him all day, and he and Hermione went back to her room to put Hazel to bed and to say goodbyes of their own.

"I'm really sorry I've got to go," Draco said quietly, watching as Hermione gently lowered a sleeping Hazel into the cradle.

"Me too..." she replied. She successfully disentangled her hands from her daughter's blankets and tucked her in. "But I'm awfully glad you decided to come."

Draco put his arms around her waist. "Me too."

They kissed, and kissed again, and then he had to take his broomstick and leave his new family for his old, increasingly unpleasant one.

When Draco touched back down on the balcony and entered his room he had a welcoming committee.

Crabbe and Goyle were standing by the door, grinning those identical smug grins they always used to wear when they and Draco were bullying somebody.

His mother was standing by the bed, her expression taught and emotionless -- the one which either meant that she was feeling conflicted or that she simply didn't care. Pansy was standing next to her, looking pale and rather scared.

Draco's father was standing right in front of him.

"_Crucio!_" Lucius Malfoy snarled, sending Draco toppling backwards with the pain before he'd taken two steps inside.

Through the agony, the feeling of blood set on fire and knives slicing long ribbons of his skin, only one coherent, terrifying thought surfaced in Draco's mind.

_He knows._

His father released him from the spell and stepped forward to spit on him. Draco writhed on the floor, still whimpering from the after-effects of the curse.

"Have you _any idea_," Lucius Malfoy said slowly, practically bursting with fury, "how much you have shamed me, boy? As if your escapades hadn't caused me enough humiliation! What were you _thinking_?_Crucio!_"

Draco, who had recovered enough to prop himself up with his hands, crumpled to the floor again. He felt tears sting his eyes and he knew, despite all the times he had done it in the past, that this time he would not be able to stop them.

"But _no_, you weren't thinking at _all_, were you!" his father continued, lessening the intensity of the pain but not letting him go. "Sneaking off when you were supposed to be studying... did you honestly think no one would notice? Even Vincent and Gregory here" -- he waved a hand in Crabbe and Goyle's direction -- "noticed that you of all people shouldn't be disappearing like that. A little spellwork and logical thinking from Miss Parkinson to find out where you'd gone and why, and they came straight to me the moment I returned."

He finally released Draco from the spell, and he lay there gasping, his father's words pushing into him like needles.

Lucius Malfoy stood eerily still, towering over his son like a god judging a sinful mortal. "Of all the women in all the world with whom to have a child -- a bastard child, no less -- you had to make the most foolish, asinine, _abominable_ choice possible, didn't you Draco? _Gryffindor's_ golden girl, one of Harry Potter's greatest friends and allies, probably the filthiest Mudblood of them all, and _you _have to father her child. Was this a conscious choice, _son_, one intended once more to make me look like a fool? Answer me!"

"No!" Draco cried, the volume of his voice surprising even himself. "I couldn't help it, I couldn't stop it! It's not my fault I'm in love with her!"

Draco had never raised his voice to his father in his life, something which had certainly contributed to the sudden silence the room was now thick with. The main factor though, had to be that tiny little four letter word, the one had had not intended to say and which had even shocked him once he had.

"Love?" his father replied in a frighteningly quiet voice. "Love, is it."

He laughed. It was the most chilling sound Draco had ever heard.

"My son is in love with a Mudblood!" Lucius Malfoy declared, turning away from Draco to address the room at large. "In that case, I see only one solution!" He stalked across the room to Crabbe and Goyle. "You," he instructed them, "Lock him in the dungeons; put him with the filthiest Muggle you can find. Parkinson!" he cried, next walking over to Pansy, who flinched when he said her name. "Find me that map." He looked once more at Draco. "I'm going to take care of this matter before it can get even more out of hand than it already is."

Draco and his father did not break eye contact even as Crabbe and Goyle made their way over to him and dragged him to his feet. "How?" he asked quietly, dreading the answer.

His father slowly and deliberately stepped towards him so that they were face to tear-stained face. Then he gave him the slow smile he reserved only for the most wicked of moments. "By taking _care_ of _them_, my boy."

Draco's blood ran cold.


	28. Chapter 28

The door to the cell slammed shut, and Draco jumped up from where he had been pushed to the floor to shout through the grating: "Crabbe! Goyle! Come back here, you bastards, let me out! We're supposed to be _friends_!"

The two hulking forms of his former sidekicks receded into the darkness of the dungeon's twisting corridors. They didn't even pause to look back.

Draco kicked the door, then shouted a curse at the sudden pain in his foot. He looked around the cell, hoping to find some means of escape... but all its contents consisted of were a dead Muggle who was beginning to smell rather bad, the chains which were holding her to the wall and the remains of what had presumably once been a blanket. It was not encouraging.

He kicked the door again, harder, and howled with pain before sinking to the floor, sobbing.

His father was going to kill the only people who really meant anything to him anymore, and there was nothing he could do to stop it.

But at the same time, how could he just sit there doing nothing, just waiting for his father to come back and tell him his family was dead?

He beat the damp stone floor with his hands and feet, wishing he could hit it hard enough to escape and knowing that every single action he could take was absolutely futile.

"Draco?"

His head snapped up so quickly that he hit the back of it on the door quite violently. Oblivious to the pain, he scrambled to his feet and looked through the grating.

Joshua was standing on the other side.

"What are you doing here?" Draco growled. As if he didn't have enough problems already.

"They sent me to guard you," the boy replied. He was staring at Draco in the most bizarre, wide-eyed manner.

"Joshua, you've got to let me out," Draco begged. "Please."

Joshua seemed to think this over for a moment before replying. "No."

"What! Why not?"

Joshua shrugged. "You've never helped me when I asked you to, why should I help you?"

"Joshua, this is a life or death situation!"

"Well, that's tough." He turned his back on Draco and leaned against the door, crossing his arms and tapping his wand against his forearm in a bored kind of gesture.

Anger boiled up inside Draco, but he forced himself to keep it in check. "Fine." He sighed. "Look, could you at least come inside and keep me company? The dead Muggle over there isn't very talkative."

Joshua turned again and eyed Draco through the grating, brows knitting in suspicion. "How do I know you're not going to put a hex on me or something and try to escape?"

Draco did his best to look like such a thought had never even crossed his mind. "Joshua, they took my wand away. What could I possibly do?"

Joshua hesitated before nodding. "Okay."

He opened the door.

Draco had grabbed the wrist of Joshua's wand hand and twisted it behind his back before he was even half-way into the room. "Honestly, Joshua," he said, wrestling the wand from the struggling boy's fingers. "You really should stop being so gullible. _Petrify!_" he cried, raising the wand.

Joshua hit the floor with a thump, an expression of mortified horror etched into his features.

Draco dragged him to the corner of the room and arranged the few rags which were meant to serve as bedding over him to hide his face. Hopefully that would buy Draco some time before anyone discovered that he had escaped.

He closed the door to the cell and tiptoed along the corridor which would lead him upstairs, formulating a plan in his head as he went. Much as it made his stomach clench almost too much to bear, he knew that trying to Apparate in his current emotional state would be beyond stupid. Flooing was out of the question as the Grangers' house was not connected to the network, and Draco had no clue as to the nearest house which was.

He was going to have to fly, but his fastest broom was in his bedroom, which had been full of people when Crabbe and Goyle had dragged him out of it. He couldn't risk going in there, but he needed that broom... Then, as he let himself through the hidden dungeon exit, an idea occurred to him.

Inspired by Harry Potter, of all people.

Well. Hermione would no doubt find it amusing.

If he got to her in time...

Trying not to be careless in his haste, Draco crept up the stairs into the back hallway. The fastest route outside was through the kitchens, but the house elves there were bound to have been told to watch out for him...

Oh, sod it. He was just going to have to risk it.

Clutching Joshua's wand in one hand, Draco walked carefully over to the kitchen door. Then he took a deep breath, flung the door open, and ran for it.

He had made it almost half-way to the garden exit before the house elves stopped imploring him to stop and actually did something about it. A spell from one of them made him fall flat on his face, which, given the speed at which he had been running, was really quite painful.

Rolling onto his back and realising to his horror that his nose was bleeding horribly, Draco Petrified the elf which had got him, and another which was trying to creep up on him from the side. Then he scrambled to his feet and fled, slamming the garden door shut behind him just before a third house elf could hit him with a stunning spell.

Draco stood still for just a few seconds, gripped Joshua's wand tightly, and pointed it in what he judged to be the general direction of his bedroom on the other side of the house. "_Accio_ broomstick!" he cried, allowing himself a small grin at the thought of Pansy and his mother seeing the broom break through the glass in his window, realising what was going on and being powerless to stop it.

Then he started running again.

He kept to the walls, feeling safer there, hoping to meet the broom on the opposite side of the house from his room in order to get the biggest head start possible on any potential pursuers.

He tripped over some cabbages in the vegetable patch by the kitchens, leaving drops of blood from his nose all over their leaves as he hurried to get up and keep running.

He rounded a corner so that he was behind the house, running with the expansive grounds on one side and the sheer stone wall of the mansion on the other, waiting in nervous expectation for his broom to come rushing around the corner opposite, waiting, running, waiting, running, almost at the corner and still no broom, where was it where was it...

The broom came flying suddenly into sight, nearly hitting him in the stomach, but Draco was too busy sighing loudly with relief that he barely noticed. He grabbed the broom, climbed on and kicked off.

Hurtling headlong into the cloudy night sky, Draco risked glancing back, but he couldn't make out in the darkness whether there was anybody following him yet or not. Still, he knew, it was only a matter of time.

He didn't think that he had ever wished quite so much that he could fly faster.

The journey seemed to take forever. Draco held onto his broom so tight he lost the feeling in his fingers, rushing along over what seemed like an endless expanse of woods and fields and towns which weren't the one he wanted.

He felt physically sick with fear, growing more sure with every passing moment that he was going to be far, far too late. He found himself searching for flashes of green light amongst the yellow Muggle lamps on the ground, sure he was somehow going to see everything he cared about be wiped right off the face of the Earth in front of his eyes.

He shouldn't have risked visiting earlier, should have known he'd be missed, why hadn't he thought it over more carefully! They were going to die, his father was going to kill them and it was all his fault, all his own, stupid fault...

At last the Grangers' street came into view below him. Everything looked normal. The downstairs lights were on behind the closed curtains...

And the front door was ever so slightly ajar.

Fear gripping him once again, Draco struggled to breathe as he descended. He misjudged the distance and was unable to brake in time to keep himself from careening right into the hedge at the side of the Grangers' front garden.

Not even taking time to recover from the sudden impact, Draco picked himself up and took Joshua's wand out of the pocket where he had stored it. Leaving his broomstick stuck in the hedge, he made his way to the door and gently eased it open.

Hermione's father was lying dead in the hallway.

Draco swallowed, stepping gingerly around the man's prone form to close the door behind him. Holding Joshua's wand out in front of him and trying not to let his hand shake, he tiptoed farther into the house.

The kitchen was empty. The dishes piled high in the sink sparkled with the light from the hall, but nothing moved. Draco withdrew and crossed into the living room.

Hermione's mother was sprawled on the sofa, as if she had been in the process of standing up when the spell which had killed her had thrown her back down.

Draco checked the rest of the ground floor before climbing the stairs, terrified at what he might find.

He reached the upstairs landing and immediately looked to the right, towards Hermione's room. Someone was lying in the doorway, the tips of their feet peeking out from underneath a thick black cloak.

Draco's breath caught in his throat as he slowly made his was towards the figure. He reached the doorway, slowly poked his head around the corner...

The person lying on the floor was his father. He looked like he'd been Petrified.

Breathing an almost disbelieving sigh of relief, Draco stumbled past his frozen father and into Hermione's room, eyes roving wildly trying to find her. He couldn't see her at first, but then he heard the tiniest of whimpers coming from a corner of the room, and found Hermione curled up behind the door, back to the wall and cradling a sleeping Hazel tightly to her chest.

She started when Draco pushed the door aside and stared up at him with the most chilling look of fear in her eyes that Draco had ever seen.

"Draco," she whispered, and burst into a flood of silent tears.

"Hermione," he said with relief, rushing to crouch down next to her and put his arms around her. "You're alive," he said, trying unsuccessfully to keep his voice from breaking.

"He killed my parents," Hermione squeaked. "He killed them, I couldn't stop him, he killed them..."

"I know," Draco said. "I'm sorry, it's all my fault, I never should have come today... I'm so sorry..."

Hermione whimpered and threw her arms around him as much as she was able to with a baby sleeping in her lap.

He comforted her silently for a minute or two before pulling away reluctantly. "Hermione, we've got to leave. My mother will have worked out that I've come here, and she's bound to have sent someone after me. Who knows how many and if we'd be able to fight them off... We need to have gone by the time they get here."

Hermione sniffed, but nodded. "Gone where?"

"Hogwarts," Draco decided. "It's got to be the safest place." He got to his feet and helped Hermione to hers. "Right. Where's that carrying thing you've got for Hazel?"

"Her sling," Hermione corrected, gulping back yet more tears, obviously trying hard to pull herself together. "It's in the drawer under the bed. She'll need some warmer clothes if we're going to take her outside..."

She put Hazel down in the cradle and began to gather her things, boots and mittens and a tiny woollen coat and hat, while Draco tried to fasten the sling around himself.

Hermione looked back at him, sighed and thrust Hazel's clothes into his hands. "Here, let me do it..."

In about ten seconds the tangled mess hanging from Draco's shoulder had turned into something which actually looked safe to carry a baby in, and a newly bundled-up Hazel was being fastened to him. All the activity had woken her up, but miraculously she was not crying. It was as if she could feel the urgency of the situation.

Suddenly a loud cracking sound came from directly beneath the bedroom window, quickly followed by a loud scream.

Hermione froze. "What was that?" She had gone completely white.

Draco edged towards the window, just far enough to see below.

Then he found himself laughing.

"It's Pansy," he said. "It looks like an Apparition gone wrong. Her legs are missing!"

Hermione breathed out, but was still visibly shaking. "We should go."

Draco couldn't agree more.

Hermione secured Hazel in the sling and quickly donned a coat and a cloak, then Draco took her by the hand and led her downstairs. She whimpered when she saw her father's body at the foot of the stairs, but Draco held her more firmly and they walked past him without stopping.

Once outside, he closed the door and retrieved his broomstick from where it was still stuck in the hedge. Then he climbed on, wrapped his cloak carefully around his body to protect Hazel, made sure Hermione was seated comfortably behind him and had a firm grip around his waist, and set off once more into the night.

On the horizon, the sun was just starting to rise.


	29. Chapter 29

They flew in silence for a long time before either of them said anything.

Finally Hazel began to cry and Hermione said quietly, "Can we land somewhere? I think she's hungry."

Draco nodded and set them down at the edge of a field he judged sufficiently far from any houses or large roads. Some cows were grazing in the grass on the other side of the fence.

Hermione climbed stiffly off the broom and stretched her legs while Draco freed Hazel from her sling. He held her up to see the cows, but she wasn't interested. She continued to cry until Hermione took her from him and sat down on the ground to put her to her breast.

Draco sat in the grass next to them and watched.

Silence descended again.

Grasshoppers chirped, birds sang, one of the cows went "moo", and Hazel from time to time made tiny smacking noises with her lips. Hermione stared into space, completely still apart from her hair, which rippled lightly in the wind.

"Hermione..." Draco started tentatively. "Are you... alright?"

She was quiet for so long that Draco thought she wasn't going to answer, but just as he was about to reach out and touch her shoulder she spoke. "No. No, I really don't think I am."

"Hermione, I'm so, so sorry about your par--"

"Can we not talk about this right now?" she cut him off. "I just..." She shook her head and looked at him for the first time. "Please?"

"Okay." He nodded.

Hermione nodded as well, more to herself than to him, and absent-mindedly stroked Hazel's cheek with her thumb.

They barely exchanged more than five words after that until late at night when they finally arrived at Hogwarts, where it was snowing.

Draco dismounted and shook out his cloak, one side of which he threw over Hermione as she came to stand beside him. He grabbed his broom with the hand which was less numb from the cold, and they went inside.

The castle was eerily quiet, with dim torches on the walls providing the only light. For some reason Draco was suddenly reminded of the day he had got the squid meat and Hermione had found him bleeding onto the floor tiles near this very spot... it seemed like an eternity ago.

"We'd better try Dumbledore's office first, I suppose," he said out loud.

"Yes," said Hermione. She was shivering. Draco took her icy hands in his slightly warmer ones and led the way.

Onwards and upwards.

They eventually reached the gargoyle guarding the entrance to the office and Draco stopped short, realising that he had no idea what the password was. He turned to Hermione. "Do you, um...?" he asked, gesturing at the stone creature.

Hermione raised her eyebrows. "Liquorice allsorts," she said to the gargoyle, and it moved to grant them access. Relieved, Draco led her onto the moving staircase.

When they reached the top there were a lot of rather loud voices coming from inside the office. Draco and Hermione looked at each other, and then he turned back to the door and knocked. It didn't sound like they were having an important conference in there, after all, more like a...

_Party_, Draco thought, taking in the balloons and paper hats as the door opened to grant them access. The conversation in the room came to an abrupt halt as its occupants took in Draco and Hermione's damp and bedraggled forms.

"Mr Malfoy...?" Dumbledore enquired after a moment, stepping toward them out of the crowd of teachers.

"Sir," Draco said boldly, trying to mask his sudden, inexplicable nerves. "We need your protection."

"Protection from whom?" the headmaster asked, sounding to Draco's ears only mildly curious as to the life-and-death situation Draco's small family was in.

Draco's eyed flicked warily to Snape before he ploughed on. "My father, sir. He found out that I was Hazel's father and he tried to kill her and Hermione." He glanced at Hermione and continued more slowly, "He murdered her parents."

McGonagall's hand flew to her mouth as all the eyes in the room turned to regard Hermione, who swallowed and gripped Draco's hand more tightly.

"Please," Draco said to Dumbledore. "I couldn't think of anywhere else to go."

Dumbledore paused, and looked at McGonagall. "Minerva," he said quietly. "Please would you escort our refugees downstairs so that they can tidy themselves up."

McGonagall nodded without hesitation and turned to head for the door. Draco and Hermione followed.

The professor led them down several flights of steps and along some of the lesser used corridors, and they found themselves standing outside Hermione's room. McGonagall glanced at her before opening the door, and Draco gently pulled Hermione inside and towards the bed.

Hermione sat down slowly, and McGonagall moved forward to help her out of her cloak, which was dripping with melting snow. Draco removed his own outer layers of clothing and set about the task of freeing himself and Hazel from the sodden sling.

His daughter was starting to whimper at the disturbance, so he disentangled her quickly from the wet straps and held her against his chest, rocking her gently.

He noticed McGonagall looking at him.

"Does this mean you're going to help us, then?" he asked, trying and failing to completely mask his anxiety.

Her features softened into something which looked almost like pity. Draco had never seen her look like this before and wasn't quite sure how to take it.

"Of course we'll help you, child," she said, in a kinder voice than she had ever spoken to him with before.

"...Oh," he said. He sat down on the edge of the bed.

"I'll go and find you something dry to wear," McGonagall said. Her eyes flicked towards Hermione. "Take care of her," she told him, as if she was leaving something unspeakably precious in his care. As if he didn't know how precious Hermione was.

He nodded at McGonagall, and she left.

Risking putting Hazel down for a moment now that she had settled a little, he finished removing the sling and divested himself of all but the most necessary of his cold, wet clothes. Then he picked Hazel back up again and sat down next to Hermione.

She was still as a statue, staring fixedly in front of her as if she had been frozen in ice.

A single tear was moving slowly down her cheek.

"Hermione..." Draco said quietly.

When she didn't reply, he put an arm around her. A second tear fell more quickly than the first.

Draco lightly pressed a kiss to her cheek, and she squeezed her eyes shut and wept.

He held her while she cried, while she wailed, while she whimpered. Neither of them spoke a word.

He wiped her tears with his fingers as they began to slow, kissed her forehead, her cheek, her temple, trying uselessly to ease her pain.

When McGonagall returned, Hazel and Hermione were both asleep in his arms.

The professor looked at them, then walked over to the bed to deposit an armful of clean robes. "Professor Dumbledore would like to see you in his office when you've changed," she informed him quietly.

"But Hermione..." Draco protested.

"You may leave her as she is," McGonagall assured him. "You're the one the headmaster wants to see."

Draco hesitated, then nodded. "Alright."

McGonagall nodded in return, and left him to get changed.

Carefully, Draco manoeuvred Hermione's sleeping form off of him and into a more or less comfortable position on the bed. He gently deposited Hazel in her cradle, then took the robes McGonagall had brought off the bed and pulled the covers over Hermione.

He examined the clothes and selected the larger of the two sets of worn, black robes to change into. The other he left on the back of a chair for Hermione.

Then he went to see Dumbledore.

Most of the other teachers had vacated the headmaster's office when Draco arrived, though there was still the odd party hat abandoned in the corner or balloon floating forlornly near the ceiling. Dumbledore was sat at his desk, with McGonagall standing behind him and Snape leaning against the wall off to the side.

"Sir," Draco said in greeting.

"Mister Malfoy." Dumbledore nodded his head in acknowledgement. "Please, take a seat."

Draco did as he was told. On the desk in front of him was a large bowl of something steaming and rather delicious smelling. He looked up in question.

"Please eat, Mister Malfoy," Dumbledore said kindly, gesturing with his hand. "And while you do so, if you would be so kind as to tell us exactly what has been happening.

"Yes, sir." Draco swallowed a large spoonful of the thick broth, and began to speak.

By the time he had finished, McGonagall's face was looking even more pinched than usual, and Snape's, Draco was sure, a shade paler.

Well. That was interesting.

_Isn't Snape on our-- I mean, the Dark Lord's side?_

Before Draco could pursue this thought further, Dumbledore spoke. "Mister Malfoy, I very much commend your courage in coming to Miss Granger's rescue. The two of you and your daughter are now under my personal protection. You will all be safe within these walls."

A nasty thought suddenly reared its head in Draco's mind.

_The spell..._

But no, he couldn't tell Dumbledore, not now that he had given them refuge. What if he changed his mind when Draco told him what terrible plan he had been a part of?

No. He couldn't risk it. He would have to find a way to stop it himself.

"Now," Dumbledore said, "Far be it for me to condone what some I am sure would call, at best, a controversial relationship, but for the time being I believe it would be best if you were to move into Miss Granger's room. I daresay some of your Slytherin housemates will not be too kindly disposed toward you at the moment."

Draco swallowed. "Yes, sir." Dumbledore was certainly right about that one.

"Very well." Dumbledore nodded. "You may leave."

"Thank you, sir." Draco got up, and went back downstairs to lie down next to Hermione.

However, unlike her, he couldn't sleep.

_What do I _do _about the spell?_

He agonised over the problem for days, all the while trying to keep up a façade of, if not happiness, at least _coping_ for Hermione. She was slowly returning to normal, but Snape, McGonagall, Madam Pomfrey -- _everyone_, really -- kept telling him that it would be a long time before she really recovered. If she ever did.

The beginning of term was fast approaching, and he had no idea how to sabotage the spell. If only he had been told how it worked, instead of just how to _make_ it work... He was going to have to do something before the holidays were over and everybody started coming back, he'd never be able to work undisturbed in the Slytherin common room otherwise... Work undisturbed doing _what_, though?

In the end he decided that there was nothing for it but to go down there and see what he could work out.

He left Hermione and Hazel playing on the floor of their room and armed himself with books and spell ingredients which seemed like they might prove useful. Then he went down to the Slytherin dungeon.

He didn't hear the voices until it was too late.

Blaise, Pansy and Joshua (Joshua! They had replaced him with _Joshua!_) looked around at him from their places by the fireplace. Then Joshua raised his wand and said, "_Petrificus Totalus!_"

The last thing Draco saw was three faces grinning at him cruelly.

Blackness.

The next thing he was aware of was a bright light.

"Draco."

Snape's voice.

Draco squinted, and managed to make out the Potions Master's face, hovering above him. Further strenuous eye activity revealed that he was in the hospital wing.

"Ng," he said.

Madam Pomfrey appeared at his side. She propped him up and held a glass of water to his mouth. "Drink this," she instructed.

Draco took a sip of the water, and tried again to speak. "Spell," he said. "Dammit."

"What are you talking about, boy?" Snape demanded. "Who did this to you?"

"_Joshua_," Draco spat. "Stupid git. And Pansy, and Blaise, they were doing the spell..."

"_What_ spell?" Snape sounded frustrated.

"The one the Dark Lord told us to do." Not until after he had said this did Draco realise that he might not have wanted to.

"Draco, listen to me, this is important." Snape leaned closer. "What does the spell do?"

Draco felt his brow furrow. "You mean you don't know?"

_Whose side are you on anyway, Professor?_

Snape's expression tightened. "No. Tell me."

"It... it's meant to weaken the charms protecting the castle," Draco said hesitatingly. "So the Dark Lord can come in and... and blow it up. I gave a lock of my hair for a Polyjuice Potion, so he could disguise himself as me and get in." A sudden horrible question gripped Draco. "What's the date? How long have I been Petrified for?"

"It's the eighth of January. You've been missing for four days."

Draco sighed with relief. "It's all supposed to happen on the seventeenth of February."

Snape nodded in acknowledgement. "I shall inform the headmaster."

"Professor..." Draco said as he began to walk away.

Snape turned his head.

"So... you're on _his_ side?" Draco asked.

Snape gave a small, almost imperceptible nod, and left.

Moments later Hermione ran in.

"Draco!" she cried, running over to hug him so hard she nearly cut off his air supply. "Draco... God, Draco, I thought I'd lost you as well..."

"Sorry about that," he said, his voice muffled by the cloud of hair covering most of his face.

"What happened?" she asked, finally pulling away far enough for him to see her properly. There were tears in her eyes, but she was smiling.

He was just trying to work out how to tell her everything when Madam Pomfrey walked over. "I'm afraid your questions will have to wait, Miss Granger. I need to perform some tests on Mr Malfoy to make sure he isn't suffering from any side effects. He should be free to leave in an hour or two."

Hermione looked disappointed, but she nodded. "I'll see you later," she said, kissing him lightly before leaving.

Draco lay back and let Madam Pomfrey do her tests.

His mind whirled while she worked.

So. Snape was working for Dumbledore. Draco had told Snape about the spell. Snape would tell Dumbledore. What would Dumbledore do?

Draco was very relieved when Madam Pomfrey gave him a clean bill of health and let him go so that he could find Hermione and escape his thoughts. He tried to keep everything but Hazel and Hermione from his mind as he made his way back to their room as quickly as he could without running.

And then, as he was walking past the main staircase, he saw something truly frightening down in the Entrance Hall.

Himself.


	30. Chapter 30

It had to be Voldemort.

Draco stood watching him at the top of the stairs, frozen, until something kick-started his brain and he began to run.

_Hermione..._

His mind was whirling once again... they must've rearranged the spell, done something to speed it up, dammit, why hadn't he _thought_ of that... they didn't have long, the Dark Lord himself didn't need to get out, there was some kind of protection spell he was going to do...

"Draco!" Snape called, for what Draco suddenly realised was the third time. He barely managed to stop running in time to avoid careening into the professor.

"I was wrong!" Draco told him desperately. "They're not waiting for February, they're doing it now, he's here _now_..."

Snape paled. "We need to evacuate the building. Get out, Draco. Take everybody you meet on the way with you."

Draco shook his head. "I need to get Hermione," he declared vehemently, and ran off again before Snape could object.

When he burst into their room, Hermione was sitting on the bed feeding Hazel. "You've got to come with me," Draco said breathlessly. "Right now."

Hermione looked up at him. "Why?"

"There isn't time to explain!" Regretfully Draco took hold of Hazel and pulled her away from Hermione's breast. He took Hermione's hand as Hazel began to wail at this rude interruption of her meal. "It's life and death, trust me, come _on_!"

Something about his tone of voice must have convinced her, because he stopped having to pull her and she ran with him unquestioningly, as McGonagall's voice began to echo through the hallways telling students to calmly evacuate the castle and assemble by the gates. These instructions were soon ignored by everyone, however, as they saw Draco and Hermione pelting down the stairs and corridors towards the Entrance Hall.

There was a crush of people streaming through the doors and Draco lost his hold on Hermione's hand for a second. He was already feeling a horrible sinking feeling in his stomach when she grabbed it again, and pulled him forward.

People were beginning to slow down once they were out of the castle and Hermione started to follow their lead, but Draco urged her on, taking them away from the crowd and behind the Quidditch stands.

They had just crouched down when there was a gigantic explosion.

"What _was_ that?" Hermione asked, as they stood again.

"The castle," Draco replied, and tugged her hand so they could continue running.

Hermione resisted. "What's the point in running now?" she said. She was beginning to get hysterical, Draco could tell. "It's _done_, it's _happened_, it's _over_..."

"Hermione." Draco stood so they were face to face. "In a minute countless Death Eaters are going to be surrounding the grounds. We've got to get out before they arrive."

"...Oh." Hermione stood still for a moment, and Draco was about to speak again when she tugged on his hand. "This way!" she cried, leading them in the direction of the forest.

"But the gates are _that _way!" Draco protested.

"Trust me!"

Draco did.

They ran across the grounds until they came to the Whomping Willow, where Hermione stopped, said "wait here," and danced around the viciously moving branches to touch a knot on the trunk.

The branches stood still.

"Come on!" she said, and ran over to a large gap underneath the tree's roots. Then she climbed down into it and disappeared.

Draco walked up to the trunk cautiously, and Hermione's hands reappeared from under the tree. "Give me Hazel."

Draco did so, and then himself climbed down into the hole.

He found himself standing next to Hermione in a narrow underground tunnel, hunching slightly to avoid hitting his head on its ceiling. Hermione began to walk, and he followed, until they came to the end of the tunnel and squeezed through another hole into a small room. Everything in it looked like it had been left there and neglected for at least fifty years and might fall apart at any second.

"Where are we?" he asked.

"The Shrieking Shack," Hermione replied. She put a hand on one of the chairs, obviously decided it wouldn't take her weight, and sat down on the floor. "I suggest we wait here until things calm down."

"_If_ they calm down," Draco replied, seating himself next to her.

"They will eventually. The only question is whether we'll still be on friendly soil when it does, or stuck in the middle of Death Eater territory." Hermione rearranged her robes and let Hazel return to the meal Draco had interrupted probably only ten minutes earlier. It already seemed like a decade.

"How will we know?" Draco said.

"Oh, by whether they kill us or not..." She leaned her head on his shoulder. "Now," she said almost sleepily. "You seem to actually know what's going on, so if you wouldn't mind filling me in, that would be great."

Draco hesitated. He didn't want to, but she was almost certain to find out from somebody else otherwise. "The Dark Lord blew up the castle. He's had some of the students working for him for months, slowly weakening all the charms and spells protecting the school. Today his plan came to fruition."

"How do you know this?" she asked, in an almost disinterested tone of voice. Draco was confused by this for a second before he realised that she already knew about, or at least suspected, his involvement.

"I was one of the students doing the dirty work."

"Oh."

This lack of response rather bothered him. "I was the one who Petrified that Hufflepuff girl. I was the one who killed the giant squid. It was that night when you patched up my shoulder," he confessed, mostly in order to elicit some more comprehensible reaction.

"I should've known." She still seemed entirely calm. It was rather frightening.

"I was expecting you to be more... upset."

Hermione sighed. "Draco, I've known for a long time that you're not exactly an angel. I've accepted it. I _could_ get all upset and start screaming and throwing things at you, but I know that whatever you've done in the past, you're on my side now. And I'm tired of being upset. I _hate_ being upset. I've had just about enough of it, really."

"...Oh."

She gave him a peck on the lips, and snuggled closer to him.

The silence that ensued was... not silent. Muffled sounds filtered in from outside; shouts, screams, explosions. Draco wondered what exactly was happening out there, and then wished he hadn't. He didn't know who was screaming, who was shouting, who was winning or who was losing. He didn't know if when the three of them eventually came out of hiding they would be greeting their friends or walking to their deaths.

Being carried to her death, in Hazel's case. Merlin, somehow that seemed even worse...

Hermione began to sing under her breath -- more to comfort herself than to placate a perfectly contented Hazel, Draco suspected.

Then there was the sound of a cracking twig from the hole which led to the tunnel, and Draco stiffened. He felt Hermione do the same beside him, and drew his wand.

There was a scuffling noise, followed by the appearance of a head of dusty, messed-up black hair, and then the rest of Harry Potter.

He looked like hell.

"Hermione!" he said, stumbling over and then sitting - no, thought Draco, _collapsing_ was a better word -- in front of her. Then he pointed his wand at Draco rather threateningly. "Don't worry," he said to Hermione. "You're safe now."

Hermione sighed. "Harry..."

"Get away from her, you filth," Potter sneered.

Draco raised his eyebrows.

"Harry, listen to me," Hermione said firmly.

Potter turned his head away from Draco just enough to look at her.

"Draco's on our side," she explained. "He's Hazel's father."

Potter looked like someone had hit him in the face. With a club. A _large_ club. "_What?_"

"Look, I tried to tell you the other day when he'd gone missing, but you wouldn't listen..."

"_He's_ the father?"

"_Yes_. His father found out, that's why he killed my parents. He tried to kill me and Hazel, too, but Draco saved us."

_Not exactly true.._. Draco wanted to point out, but he supposed anything which made him look good in Potter's eyes was a good thing.

Potter sat back, stunned.

"So you can put the wand away, Harry," Hermione told him. She looked up. "You too, Draco."

Draco and Potter obeyed, albeit watching each other warily.

Hermione sighed again. "Now that that's out of the way, can you tell us what's going on?"

Potter licked his lips. "There are Death Eaters everywhere. McGonagall and Sprout are trying to get the younger students to the train, to get them away. Dumbledore's set up headquarters in the Three Broomsticks; him and the other teachers are setting up wards and protection spells there." He swallowed. "Hermione, Ron's dead."

Draco could feel Hermione tense. She seemed to gasp for air, then squeaked, "How?"

"Death Eater. We were just grinning at each other because we'd got out of the castle alive, and then..." Potter swallowed again, harder, and looked down. "I Petrified the bastard. Should've killed him."

Hermione held out her free arm to Potter, and they hugged tightly. Draco suddenly felt like an intruder.

Thankfully Hazel interrupted this private moment by finishing her meal and pinching Hermione, who hissed and clucked her tongue at her.

By the time Hermione looked up again the look on Potter's face had turned to one of steely determination. "I'm supposed to be rounding up the strays, taking them back to the Three Broomsticks," he said. "I sent Ginny back with a group of them right before I came down here, just on the off-chance that I might find you." He paused here, his expression clearly saying _and I'm so glad I did_. "I've checked everywhere I can think of and I don't reckon I'll find anybody else. Will you come back with me? It isn't safe yet, but it should be soon. Safer than here, anyway."

Hermione looked at Draco questioningly.

He shrugged. He honestly didn't know which option was less potentially fatal.

Hermione nodded at Potter. "We'll come."

_Safety in numbers, then,_ Draco supposed. Hoped.

Potter returned the nod and looked uncertainly at Draco before getting to his feet. "The grounds are crawling with Death Eaters. It's probably safer to just go out through the door of the Shack."

"Alright." Hermione held out a hand to Draco and he pulled her up. "Let's go."

The front door was locked and boarded up, so Potter kicked it open. _Show-off,_ Draco thought, as broken plaster, splinters of wood and shattered icicles rained down on their heads. The three of them shook off the debris and crept cautiously out into the snow, with Hazel wrapped underneath her mother's cloak.

Potter glanced around at their surroundings and motioned them forward. "Malfoy, you go in front, I'll take up the rear."

"Don't want to have you back to me, eh Potter?" Draco said quietly as he walked past to take his place. Potter narrowed his eyes.

This part of the village seemed deserted, though the sounds of fighting were echoing in the distance. Still, they kept to the walls of the buildings and tried to step on snow rather than ice, just in case. Hermione slipped going down a short slope and both Draco and Potter rushed to keep her on her feet -- she shook them both off and continued walking while they again eyed each other warily before doing the same.

The noise grew louder as they approached the Three Broomsticks, and they began to see scorch marks on the walls and the ground, ringed by melted and re-freezing snow. They walked past something which looked suspiciously like a bloodstain.

Then they started to see the bodies.

There were just one or two at a time at first, lying crumpled in the snow in unnatural positions. Some were already half covered in snow, while others had water dripping from their motionless ears, noses, fingertips.

Silently, Draco took Hermione's hand and prayed she wouldn't recognise any of them. He wasn't sure quite how much more death she could cope with.

The crack of a boot on broken ice sounded suddenly around the corner, and they all froze.

Potter put a finger to his lips and crept out in front of Draco and Hermione. He flattened himself against the wall and peered around the corner.

He visibly relaxed at the sight of whoever it was, and motioned Draco and Hermione forward. They turned the corner to see Ginny Weasley standing in front of them. Her eyes first widened and then narrowed again when she saw Draco, and she raised her wand at him.

Draco sighed. Convincing all these people he was on their side was going to be tedious, he could tell.

"What's _he_ doing with you?" the Weasley girl demanded.

Potter grabbed her wand and lowered it forcibly. "It's alright. I'll explain later."

"Harr--"

"I'll _explain later_," he said again. "Let's get back."

The redhead narrowed her eyes in much the same fashion as Potter seemed wont to do in Draco's presence, but nodded.

There was a loud BANG beside them, and dust began to billow from a nearby doorway. Hazel began to cry, and Potter cursed. "Come on," he said. "We'd better hurry."

They walked the remainder of the way more quickly, with two more near misses before they arrived at the Three Broomsticks. Snape opened the door at Potter's knock.

"Ah, Potter," he said. "You managed not to die, I see." He opened the door wider and let them all in before closing it firmly behind them. Draco noticed that his eyes rested longer on Ginny Weasley than the rest of them. "Go to the windows and help with defence, all of you."

"But Professor," Hermione began, "I--"

"Miss Abbott," Snape said to a nearby Hufflepuff, "Take Miss Granger's baby down to the cellar with the rest of the children and look after it."

Both Abbott and Hermione hesitated for a moment before Hermione reluctantly handed Hazel off. She gazed after her daughter with longing.

"Miss Granger!" Snape said. "You are needed."

Hermione shook herself out of it and nodded. She and Draco made their way over to the spot by a nearby window which Abbott had just vacated, where one of the Ravenclaws was already standing watch. Potter took the Weasley girl off to another part of the room, speaking to her under his breath.

"What are we doing?" Draco whispered to the Ravenclaw, brandishing his wand and peering out of the window.

"The Death Eaters know we're trying to set up protection spells here," the Ravenclaw said. "They're attacking. We're defending."

"By doing wh--"

"_Petrificus Totalus!_" the boy shouted, dropping an approaching Death Eater to the ground.

"Why aren't you killing them?" Draco demanded.

"If _you_ know how to perform the Killing Curse, be my guest," he sneered. "Dumbledore says now is not the time to be experimenting, and I really tend to agree."

Draco glared, and waited for his chance.

It was a long wait, and he almost missed it, but he managed to raise his wand a split second before the arrogant Ravenclaw could, and shouted "_Avada Kedavra!_"

The Ravenclaw boy stared. Hermione seemed to be nodding to herself.

The enemy fell to the ground. It took Draco a moment to realise that it was Theodore Nott.

He felt rather nauseated, but did his best not to let this show -- it simply wouldn't do. He set his jaw and waited for the next one.

The next few hours, sitting there watching for enemies, waiting for the protection charms to be finished so that they could at least feel _relatively_ safe there, were probably the most tense of his life. When Dumbledore finally told them that they could leave their positions, it took Draco a while to focus his eyes properly and to stand up straight. He only began to come out of his daze when Madam Rosmerta began handing out bowls -- and cups, and other available containers -- of stew, and Hermione retrieved Hazel from her minders and joined him in the long row of exhausted students sat with their backs resting against the bar and enjoying the first meal they had had since all the chaos had begun.

"Are you alright?" Draco asked Hermione quietly.

She hesitated, but nodded. "I think so. More or less."

He reached for her hand and squeezed it.

They bedded down on a pile of cloaks behind the bar, surrounded by a crowd of others trying to sleep on equally improvised bedding. Hermione settled Hazel on her chest and Draco lay down next to them, putting an arm protectively over both of them. They lay there silently for a long time before Hermione whispered, "Are you asleep?"

"No."

"Me neither." Draco heard her sigh before she said, "I really never thought it would come to this. Real war." She sounded pensive.

"I did. I just didn't think it would be quite... like this."

Blood and glory and adventure, Draco had imagined, when he used to think of war. Daring deeds, exciting battles. Not to mention that tiny matter of being on the other side.

He sighed, and wondered how he could ever have thought he wanted it.


	31. Chapter 31

"I'm not happy about this," Draco grumbled for the sixth time that morning.

Hermione sighed. "Draco, we've been through this. Hazel will be in perfectly capable hands -- Molly Weasley has raised seven children, for goodness' sake! And as for me, I'm the best person for the job."

"No," countered Draco, "You're not. Harry Potter's the best person for the job. Or Snape. Or McGonagall. _Not you_."

"Draco, you _know_ we can't spare any of them," Hermione replied exasperatedly.

Draco gritted his teeth and sat on the bed while Hermione continued to pack Hazel's things.

They had been staying at the Leaky Cauldron -- in a room charitably paid for by Harry Potter, which did nothing for Draco's continued dislike of him -- for almost five months now, ever since things had begun to calm down a little after the destruction of Hogwarts had formed the opening salvo of what was now a full-blown war.

Somehow, life was going on, with new habits, new safety measures and new priorities replacing the relative complacency most people had lived in before.

War was becoming routine.

So were arguments like the one Draco and Hermione were having now. Hermione usually won; however, this was a special case.

"Hermione, I don't think you understand how dangerous my father can be! We're breaking into his _home_, and he's not exactly the forgiving type..."

"He killed my parents." Hermione looked at him. "I understand exactly how dangerous he can be."

Draco swallowed and was still.

"Besides which," Hermione continued, returning to her packing, "Ginny is my friend, and she doesn't deserve to be there. None of the other prisoners do either, for that matter. And if everything goes according to plan we'll all be out before they realise what's happening."

"That's a big 'if', the other side of which is 'If things don't go according to plan, we'll all be killed.'"

"Draco..." Hermione closed Hazel's bag and took Draco's hand. "I know you're worried, but it's going to be fine." She squeezed his hand and smiled.

Draco forced a smile in return, but his fears weren't quelled. He had a very bad feeling about this.

They flooed to the Weasleys' house to drop off Hazel before Apparating to a patch of woodland just beyond the edge of the Malfoys' territory. The sun had just set -- Draco's family would be eating or sitting in the drawing room, out of the way of the prisoners who were undoubtedly located in the dungeons and, if things were still done the way they used to be, were only fed once a day at lunchtime. The dungeons would hopefully be otherwise deserted by now, allowing Draco and Hermione's rescue operation to go undetected until long after they had made their escape.

At least, that was the plan. Draco's stomach clenched when he saw the house again -- his childhood home, scene of countless memories, now somewhere he had to tread with fear.

Still. They were here. There was no turning back now.

He nodded at Hermione, and they began to thread their way through the trees and down towards the house. Lights were on in the expected places -- kitchen, dining room, drawing room. So far, so good.

They made their way quickly but quietly across the lawn at the side of the house to the wall, which they pressed themselves against before moving around to the entrance.

The front entrance.

The only other way in would have been through the kitchen, which would surely be occupied by at least half a dozen house elves preparing or cleaning up after the evening meal, each with explicit orders to detain any intruders -- especially if one of them was Draco. Hermione had at first suggested flying in through one of the upper windows, but in order for that to work they would have had to physically smash them; no simple _Alohamora_ would grant them access to this fortress.

So. The front door it was.

They reached the corner of the small courtyard and Draco peered around it toward the door. Crabbe and Goyle were standing guard.

Good. This part should be fairly straightforward, then.

He inched back to let Hermione see and whispered, "I'll take Goyle, you take Crabbe."

She nodded, and held up a hand. _Three, two, one,_ she indicated, and they swung around the corner simultaneously and shouted, "_Petrificus Totalus!_"

Crabbe and Goyle fell forward with a thump, and Draco and Hermione hurried forward to prop them back up so that they would not at first glance seem incapacitated. Hopefully first glance would be all they needed.

After a minute of grunting and heaving, Crabbe and Goyle were once again stood flanking the door. The difference really wasn't that noticeable.

Draco cautiously took the door handle in his hand, and pushed. Hermione crept in after him.

The hallway inside was, to his relief, deserted. They tiptoed along the side of it, trying not to let their footsteps echo on the polished marble floor. Draco tried to ignore the portraits of his ancestors hung at various intervals along the way, staring down at him as if they were judging him. _Foolish, unworthy child_, they seemed to be saying. _How dare you betray us so? _Their eyes followed him, but there was no other movement -- some Malfoy ancestor long ago had decided that the constant arguments these portraits got into, often even shouting at each other across the hall, was unseemly and had had them all frozen, so that they now merely sat there looking dignified.  
_  
_Thankful for this small mercy, Draco suppressed a shudder and walked steadfastly onwards.

He and Hermione reached the top of the stone steps leading downstairs and tiptoed carefully into the long, winding passageway below. They took up positions on opposite sides of the walls and moved slowly forward, Draco leading the way.

At last they arrived at the apparent dead end behind which the dungeons were hidden. Draco licked his lips and tapped out the the familiar pattern on the stones so that they would move aside.

Nothing happened.

Hermione looked at him apprehensively and he swore loudly. She put a finger to her lips and stepped closer. "Try again," she urged quietly.

Draco swallowed, trying to keep his rising feeling of panic at bay, and turned back to the wall. Again he tapped out the sequence.

Again nothing happened.

Draco pressed his forehead against the wall in frustration. "The pattern _never_ changes," he hissed. "I mean really never. It's been the same since the place was built! It's a matter of pride that it doesn't _need_ to be changed!"

Hermione put a mildly comforting hand on his shoulder. "I imagine changing the pattern was hardly the blow to your father's pride that your changing sides was. It doesn't matter, there's got to be a way around it..." She looked thoughtfully at the uncooperative masonry.

Draco sighed and leaned against the side of the passage. "I wouldn't hold my breath. The--"

The sound of footsteps echoed from somewhere nearby and they both froze.

"This way!" Draco hissed, grabbing Hermione and pulling her around the nearest corner just before the source of the footsteps came into view.

It was Joshua.

They flattened themselves into the shadows on the wall as he walked past. The sound of Joshua's wand tapping against the stones made Draco hold his breath.

Stone scraped on stone and the sound of Joshua's footsteps resumed. Draco peered around the corner to see Joshua walk into the nearest cell. He tugged at Hermione's hand and they ran into the dungeons just before the hidden door slid shut behind them.

Draco peered through the grating of the cell Joshua had entered. Hermione did the same.

Inside the cell, Ginny Weasley was chained to the wall. Her robes were torn, her hair and face dirty, and she was a lot thinner than when Draco had seen her last. The look on her face was one of concentrated disdain.

Joshua was ignoring this completely and removing his robes. There could be no doubt as to what his intentions were.

Draco sighed.

"How dare he!" Hermione whispered, aghast. The sneer on her face almost matched one of Draco's own finest.

Draco waited no longer. He reached forward to open the door and raised his wand. "_Expelliarmus!_" he cried before Joshua had time to react, and his former unwanted protégé's wand came flying into Draco's hand.

Hermione immediately rushed over to Ginny and began to release her from her bonds. Draco bound Joshua with a flick of his wand and stepped closer to him. "Joshua, seriously now, you really should just give it up. You're nowhere near clever enough to be truly evil, certainly not to the level of my father or the Dark Lord. You'll never even be as bad as I was, back when you tried to worship me so. And if you keep doing things as badly as you're doing them now, I've got a very strong feeling that you're going to be killed. Possibly by the very people you're fighting for."

"I've got better things to do than to listen to a traitor like you." Joshua's sneer was not nearly as impressive as Hermione's.

Draco shrugged. "You know what, Joshua? I really don't care." He turned to Ginny. "You alright?" he asked.

She nodded. "More or less."

"Good." He pulled Joshua over to the recently vacated set of chains on the wall and shackled him in. "Right, let's move on. Do you know how many other prisoners there are and what cells they're in?" he said to Ginny.

She grimaced. "Only some of them."

"That's a start, anyway. Tell me what you know."

Her eyes narrowed as she concentrated. "When Crabbe brings the food he shoves it into three other cells on this side of the passageway and two on the other, but he gives double to the cell two doors down from the one opposite so there's probably more than one person in there. He gives double to one of the cells on this side as well, but I can never tell which one. In the cell opposite there's a woman with a Russian accent. Next door to me is a man. That's... that's all I know."

"Alright," Draco said, playing over possible tactics in his mind. "We'll get the prisoners on this side out first. We'll each open a door, then get the ones opposite, explain quickly that we're here to help them escape and that they need to follow us, and then get out of here as fast as we can. Okay?"

"Okay," Ginny and Hermione both assented.

"Right," said Draco. He handed Joshua's wand to Ginny. "Let's get a move on, then."

He led them back out into the corridor and they each stood in front of a door and pushed. Hermione's was the only one which required an _Alohamora_; the other two were simply one-sided doors, unopenable from the inside. The woman in the cell behind Draco's door was in chains, so he ran over to free her of them. When he returned to the corridor Hermione and Ginny were at work on the remaining two doors. Again Hermione used an _Alohamora_ to open hers and to free the two men inside, but Ginny was having trouble.

"Hermione!" she said. "I think this one's more complicated."

Hermione moved swiftly to her side to examine the lock. She began to mutter under her breath, and Ginny stepped towards her fellow prisoners to reassure them and let them know what was going on. Draco, seeing that he was not needed in this, stood next to Hermione to watch her work.

"I think this is some kind of voice-activated lock," she said to him distractedly. "It has to be someone specific's voice -- probably your father's -- and he has to be saying a specific phrase."

"Can you open it?" Draco asked, starting to become aware of the delay this was causing.

Hermione stepped back from the door. "No," she said. "But the door itself..." Again she held out her wand and muttered something under her breath. "Yes," she said, grinning. "That should work. _Infirmo!_" she said, waving her wand, followed almost immediately by "_Dissolvus!_"

The door seemed to turn to dust before their eyes, leaving the lock still attached to the frame and a relieved looking woman staring at them from behind it.

"Thank you," she said with a mild slavic accent. "That was... most impressive."

Hermione positively beamed.

Draco allowed himself half a second to share her triumph, the turned to address the group. "Alright everybody," he said. "Stay right behind me and try to be as quiet as possible. With any luck we'll be out of the grounds in ten minutes."

The assembled prisoners looked like they had understood this, so Draco turned to open the hidden door using the pattern he had seen Joshua tap out earlier. To his satisfaction the door opened, and he was able to lead his small band of escapees out of the dungeons.

This satisfaction lasted for about the space of three steps before it turned to sudden horror.

Lucius Malfoy had just turned the corner up ahead and was coming straight towards them, a look of pure rage intensifying on his face as he grew closer.

Draco froze for a moment, then forced himself to take some kind of action. "Everybody," he cried, "_Run!_"

The stampede began about him even as his father reached him and threw him bodily back into the dungeons.

Draco felt his head hit stone and blacked out.


	32. Chapter 32

Draco woke up to find himself lying on the damp stone floor of one of the cells in the dungeons of the Malfoys' mansion.

"H'mione...?" he mumbled, slowly moving his head from side to side in search of her. There was no reply, so he grimaced and struggled to sit up. However, as soon as he had got himself more or less upright he was overcome by a splitting headache and a terrifying sense of déjà vu.

Locked up in his own family's dungeons, wandless, with Hermione once again in terrible danger from his rage-driven father.

Of all the scenarios to have to repeat, Draco thought dimly, this one would be right at the bottom of his list.

Gingerly holding a hand to the back of his head to explore the swollen welt which seemed to have appeared there, Draco squinted around himself. The only light in the cell came through the grating in the door from the torch in the passageway, and it took a while for his eyes to adjust. When he finally could see more than just shadows, it was hardly worth it. The cell was completely empty save the chains on the wall, a pile of hay in the corner covered by what had probably once been a blanket, and a rather large spider hanging from the ceiling. Draco didn't even have the decomposing Muggle to keep him company for this unwanted encore.

He checked about his person for his wand or anything else useful his captors might have accidentally left him, but to no avail. They'd even taken his cloak.

With immense mental effort, Draco forced himself to stand up, bracing himself against the nearest wall for support. He had to keep moving, keep thinking, keep plotting... Otherwise the pit of worry he felt gnawing at his stomach would turn him inside-out and swallow him whole.

So. Escape. That had to be the plan. Wherever Hermione was and whatever was happening to her, escape seemed vital to any effort to help her. Of course, with any luck she had escaped and was on her way to help _him_, but...

Well. But. Too many buts and what-ifs to think about.

Right then. Escape.

He felt his way all around the walls, tracing the cracks between the bricks with his fingers, searching for one of those rumoured secret passageways he had heard about as a child and spent hours looking for but never found. Alas, his luck didn't seem to have changed on that front, even though so many other things were different now...

He squeezed his eyes shut and opened them again, making himself focus. So. No convenient secret escape routes and no window, which left only one way out. Draco stepped over to the door and ran his hands over the wood, hoping this would be one of the cells with an actual _lock_, something he could fiddle with and miraculously open and escape... But no. The only break in the rough rectangle of wood was the grating, through which he could see absolutely nothing but the identical grating of the cell opposite.

"Hello...?" he said cautiously.

Maybe there was a guard nearby. Maybe someone like Joshua, of whom he had so efficiently taken advantage the last time he had been stuck in here. Or at least somebody who might tell him what was happening to Hermione...

But there was no reply.

"_Hello_," Draco said more loudly.

Silence.

He banged his fist heavily against the door.

Nothing.

Before he could think about it and tell himself not to do it, Draco found himself sighing and sitting down and collapsing limply against the wall.

He felt the crack widening in his carefully constructed mental barriers even before his knees touched the floor.

_Well,_ he thought somewhat despondently, _I've gone and done it now, haven't I?_

The crack widened, and more cracks split open, and the fear began gushing through.

Where _was_ Hermione, anyway? And how could he possibly find out? She could be anywhere... _anything_ could be happening to her, could be being done to her... Lucius Malfoy was not exactly famous for being kind to his prisoners, especially the female ones. _Especially_ the Muggle-born female ones.

_Merlin, she'd be screwed..._

Draco belatedly realised the literal meaning of this thought and shivered in horror, squeezing his eyes shut again._ I am not going to cry, I am not going to cry, I am not going to cry..._

He turned, leaned against the door and again began beating it with his fist, harder and louder this time, more erratically and hysterically as all the suppressed panic finally bubbled to the surface, as if every terrifying thought was trying to burst into his brain at once...

He didn't know how much time had passed, but his hand was bleeding and his whole face seemed sticky with tears when his now slowly, almost mechanically pounding fist suddenly encountered no resistance, and he looked up and saw that the door was open.

The silhouetted figures of Crabbe and Goyle reached down and dragged him to his feet. Neither of them spoke as they pulled him along the passageway and up the steps, and Draco's fear-numbed mind seemed incapable of any form of human speech even when it belatedly realised that some kind of verbal reaction might be appropriate.

The bright lights and soft carpets of the upper floors provided him with a jolt sufficient to make him start blinking again, and as the wheels in his brain began turning again he started to take more notice of his surroundings.

They were taking him to his father's study.

The fresh wave of terror this somehow provoked in him was like being doused with a bucket of freezing water. Everything took on a quality of being too crisp, too focussed, too real, the brushstrokes of the painting on the wall, Crabbe's fingers pinching his arms, Goyle's wheezing from climbing too many stairs, everything pulled from numbed blurriness through normality and out the other side into painful clarity...

Crabbe flung the door of the study open and Draco was thrown unceremoniously to the floor on the far side of the room. His two former housemates took up positions on either side of the door to the hallway -- the side door leading to Draco's parents' bedroom was left unguarded. Through this door now came Lucius Malfoy, striding into the room at am ambling, easy pace with his hands clasped behind his back -- Draco recognised this as the tension-concealing gesture it was, but he wasn't sure whether to point this out or to pretend to be fooled. He settled on the latter as less potentially dangerous.

"Draco," his father said, standing over him, eyes narrowed with cold anger. "Get up."

Draco obeyed automatically; a fact he only properly realised when he was already standing shakily on his feet. "Where's Hermione?" he asked, trying to make his voice as cool and steady as his father's and failing completely.

Lucius Malfoy narrowed his eyes a fraction farther. "All in good time, boy."

_That means that he's got her... she didn't escape..._

Draco swallowed as his father went on: "Son, I am utterly disappointed in you."

Draco felt his stomach knot... and then wondered why. What did it matter if his father was disappointed in him? There were more important people in his life now, surely. "I don't care," he said, marveling at how easily the words came out of his mouth. "Where's Hermione?"

His father stepped closer, and for a moment Draco thought he was going to hit him. "_Patience_, boy," his father hissed. "We will deal with _her_ in a moment." He clasped his hands behind his back again and walked slowly around Draco, circling him like a lion playing with its prey. Draco did not lower himself to turning back towards him when he was out of view.

"As I was saying," his father continued. "I am utterly disappointed. I suppose however that I should not be surprised; I have been growing more and more disappointed in you ever since you went to Hogwarts. I should never have let your mother sway me on such an important decision, that is clear to me now. Perhaps at Durmstrang you would have done better, free as you would have been from the perverted influences of blood-traitors and" -- he almost spat here, so ferocious was his voice -- "_Muggles_."

"Or maybe I would have turned out exactly the same and been expelled, and be even more of an embarrassment to you than I am now," Draco replied. His heart was pounding and he could feel his hands shaking with the fear, but it was almost like a drug -- how far could he go? He knew he was balancing on a knife's edge, and he was quite certain that his father could and would kill him if provoked into a sufficient rage... but something was compelling him to push the situation to its limits. It was the most horribly thrilling thing he had ever experienced.

"Embarrassment is not a strong enough word for what you are!" his father railed, stopping abruptly in his slow circuit of the room and bearing down on Draco once again. "You are a disgrace to your name! Whoever heard of a Malfoy having a child with a Mudblood? Choosing her side over that of his own family in a war!"

"I daresay it's happened before," Draco said blandly.

"Boy, you are out of your mind! What you have done is an outrage!"

"Technically I'm not a boy anymore, you know."

"Insolent child!" his father shouted.

"Small-minded old man!" Draco fired back.

Lucius Malfoy froze, and Draco somehow knew in that instant that he had gone too far. He felt his stomach drop as he waited for the consequences, suddenly very aware of the fact that he was a prisoner here, unarmed and outnumbered by three to one in this room alone.

His father straightened and called out, glancing in the direction of the bedroom, "Bring her in!"

The door to the bedroom was opened wider, and Joshua entered the study. He was pulling Hermione behind him with a sharp grip on her elbow.

Hermione was paler than he had seen her since the night her parents had been killed, and her hands were bound behind her back. "Draco," she said quietly, her voice quavering.

"Hermione. It's going to be alright," he said desperately, though he could hardly see how it could be so. He wondered if she understood what terrible danger they were both in... No, he thought, seeing the way her jaw was set. Of course she understood. She was Hermione; she understood everything.

"I don't understand," his father was saying, standing next to Draco now in an almost comradely manner and looking at Hermione in much the same way as one might look at a piece of furniture one was thinking of buying. "What is it about this girl which would make you give up everything in exchange for her? It can't be her looks, nor her wealth, and certainly not her family. Whatever it is that you see in her, it completely eludes me."

"If you can't see any value in her you can just let her go, then," Draco said guardedly.

"Oh, on the contrary." His father smiled and a chill went through Draco's spine. "I do see one use for her," Lucius Malfoy continued, waving Joshua away from Hermione and going over to stand where he could comfortably look down on her. "You are in fact, my dear, my last hope."

"I'm not doing anything for you," Hermione said. Her voice was steady this time, but Draco could tell that she was terrified.

"I beg to differ." Draco's father reached casually into his robes and produced his wand. He nodded at Crabbe and Goyle, who walked across the room towards Draco. They each grabbed one of his arms and Joshua renewed his hold on Hermione, and Draco's father raised his wand...

"No!" Draco shouted in terror.

To his surprise, his father stopped with his hand in midair and turned his head to look at Draco thoughtfully. "No," he echoed quietly. "No. She's a Muggle." He looked almost absently at his desk and retrieved a letter-opener. "She should _die_ like a Muggle."

And he plunged the letter-opener into Hermione's chest.

"Hermione!" Draco cried desperately, as he and Hermione were both released from their captors' grips and fell to the floor. He scrabbled over to her and looked at her helplessly.

"Draco…" she whispered. "Dra--" She was interrupted by a cough which brought up blood, and Draco clutched her hand powerlessly. "You... yyuh..." Her brows knit in frustration, but no more words would form. "Hhh... kk..." She coughed again, and closed her eyes with the pain.

She didn't open them again.

Draco stared.

Her features were still set in their expression of frustration and annoyance. It would've been funny, if it weren't for... for...

His father was saying something, smugly, as if he had just solved some kind of problem. Draco couldn't listen; his head, his eyes, the echoes in his ears were filled with Hermione, Hermione, Hermione...

He held her tight, in the awful knowledge that she could never do the same for him again.

**Author's note:** I know, you hate me. I sort of hate me too, but I had to. If you want a better explanation, I will be providing one in my reflecty-type LiveJournal entry when I've posted the last few chapters.

That's right, folks, it's almost over...


	33. Chapter 33

Crabbe and Goyle roughly shoved Draco into his bedroom, slamming and locking the door behind him. He lay where he had fallen, still too stunned even to weep.

He had been torn away from Hermione's body after what seemed like only an instant, his former friends acting on his father's orders to 'take him to his room to think about it, so that I may speak to him when he has come to his senses.'

Draco doubted that would be any time soon. He wouldn't know _how_ to get back to his senses, and he wasn't sure he really wanted to. Surely everything would just seem even more terrible if he in any way tried to think about it rationally.

He had heard about people in this kind of situation going into denial, refusing to believe whatever horrible thing had happened to them. He rather wished he could be one of those people – denial sounded rather pleasant, all things considered. But the gaping hole he now felt inside left him with no doubt that Hermione was dead, and that he would never be whole again.

It was the worst thing that had ever happened to him, and it had been done to him by his father. If Lucius Malfoy somehow thought that taking Hermione away from him in such a brutal fashion was somehow going to bring him back into the fold of the family, he was sorely mistaken. Of this Draco was certain.

If Draco had been fighting for the other side in this war until now, it had been because that was Hermione's side. From now on it would be because it was not his father's side; because it's entire goal was to destroy everything his father was working to build... because if Lucius Malfoy lost this war, he would be broken.

But no, Draco suddenly thought. Broken wasn't enough.

He wanted his father dead.

This realisation brought clarity, _purpose _back to him, and he looked around the room for a weapon. If his father was going to come back to speak with him he was not going to speak very much; Draco would make sure of that.

He couldn't use a wand, that was obvious, unless he somehow managed to divest his father of his – but that was unlikely. Draco's father was no Joshua Fizzlewinch; he wouldn't let himself be robbed so easily of such a valuable tool. No, there had to be something else...

Draco looked at the window. If he smashed it, perhaps he could use the glass... but no, that would be too clumsy a weapon, and he would be just as likely to cut his hand open that his father's throat. Some blunt, heavy object then, to smash him over the head with... His broom!

...But of course his broom was no longer here, having been used to rush to Hermione's aid when his father had found out about them... aid which was all in vain now, of course...

Then his eyes took in the wall in front of him, and Draco grinned.

Of all the stupid mistakes to make...

His sword was still there, hanging above the desk in pride of place as it had always been. Draco reached up to test the blade – it was sharp, as he expected, having had it sharpened when it was mounted. Now, if he could just _un_mount it...

He unhooked the mount from the wall and put it on the floor at his feet. Then he braced one foot against it, grabbed it by the hilt and pulled.

The sword snapped off with almost no resistance, and Draco stumbled back several feet and landed on his buttocks, clutching the sword with both hands.

He looked at it, feeling its weight, testing the way it handled. So, this was the weapon his father would be slain by... It was somehow quite fascinating.

Right; he had his weapon. But Draco would need to catch his father by surprise if he was to use it successfully, otherwise he would surely be disarmed before he could even raise his arm.

Walking over to the door, Draco pressed his ear against it, wondering if he would be able to hear footsteps outside before the door was opened... but he had to concede to himself that this was unlikely. The expensive softness of the carpet outside had practical consequences as well as aesthetic. There were no cracks in the wood to press his eyes to from which he could see the hallway, either.

Unless he made one... He did have the sword, after all.

But any hole he made would be seen from the outside, sure to make anyone entering the room more cautious even if they didn't expect to be attacked with a real weapon.

...Unless.

Draco ran into the bathroom, stared at the window, then resolutely wrapped a towel around his fist and smashed it.

Bits of glass flew everywhere, and several hit his arms and face, leaving little cuts peppered across his skin. He barely noticed, leaning over the windowsill to gather likely-shaped shards – which was more difficult than he had anticipated, because depending on which way up they landed their camouflaging properties made them almost impossible to see. Still, as it was these very properties of which he hoped to make use, he could hardly complain.

Holding the shards carefully in the palm of his hand, he looked around for somewhere to deposit them which would be safer than the floor. Ah, the soap dish... he grabbed it and let the pieces of glass trickle into it as he walked back into his room. Setting it down near the door, he took his sword and began scratching away at the wood.

This took a lot longer than he had anticipated.

The sword was an awkward tool to work at such a task with. The point was difficult to manoeuvre because of the blade's length, and he dropped it several times, once so clumsily that it cut into his kneeling leg and drew blood. The hard wood would have been more suited to a drill or a small knife, not this large implement intended for cutting holes in people, not doors, and he chipped away at it almost gainlessly, stabbing away stubbornly until eventually, somehow, there was a hole in it just large enough to see through.

Finally allowing himself to lay down his sword, Draco flexed the fingers of one hand while he sorted through the pieces of glass at his side with the other. He found a likely sized shard and placed it into the hole first with its camouflaging side facing him, just to check that it would work.

It did, and better than expected. Draco grinned – and then remembered why he was doing this in the first place. Why he hadn't been grinning for the past few hours.

The pain pulled once more at his gut, and he pulled the shard out roughly, turned it around and jammed it back in, hammering at it with the back of his thumb to make sure it stuck.

Then he picked up his sword and stood with his eye against his little peephole, gritting his teeth.

He almost jumped out of his skin when Lucius Malfoy swept around the corner mere seconds later.

Draco found himself almost transfixed, watching his father looming closer and closer. His long, pale hair flowed up and down with each step, majestic black cloak echoing the movement. Fists clenched, expression stern and emotionless...

He was like evil personified. Draco couldn't fathom how he had never seen it before now.

And then Lucius Malfoy put out a hand to open the door, and Draco Malfoy stood back, swung his sword up, and cut off his father's head before the door was half open.

There was blood everywhere, on Draco's face, his hands, his chest, in his mouth and eyes – everything was red. The head bounced when it hit the floor and rolled back the short way into the hallway. The long hair did not quite conceal the expression of shock on the dead man's face.

A jolt went through Draco's body and he realised that he had fallen to his knees, staring into the vacant eyes of the man he had so efficiently decapitated. They didn't look that different – perhaps because there had never been much feeling in them to begin with. Dispassionate, that was the word.

Draco looked dispassionately at his father's body. Then he let his back hit the wall behind him, curled his arms around his legs and finally cried for the woman who had taught him what passion really meant.

He barely noticed when Crabbe and Goyle appeared, took in the scene, and eventually hauled him back to the dungeons.


	34. Chapter 34

An indeterminate amount of time later, Draco was pulled from the quiet solitude of his cell and pushed into a carriage. There were other people in there with him, but he didn't look at them, preferring instead to stay in his carefully constructed state of isolated numbness. He was sure he would achieve denial any day now.

Then, some time later, one of them poked him.

"Draco?"

"Mmph," he managed, annoyed to have his private hell invaded so.

"Draco!" This time he was shaken roughly by the shoulder.

"_What_?" he groaned, startling himself by speaking.

"Oh good, I thought you'd gone catatonic. I was just saying, you do realise we're being rescued, right? You-Know-Wh—I mean, Voldemort's dead, apparently." This last was said more hesitantly.

Before he thought about it and realised what he was doing, Draco looked up and into the pale but somehow lively face of Ginny Weasley. "...What?" he managed again, blinking.

She regarded him sympathetically. "We've been rescued."

Draco's brain struggled with the concept of this. Rescued, from hell? But hell was inside his head, surely it didn't matter where his physical body was. Hell would come with him wherever he went; there could be no rescue from something which was a part of oneself.

"Oh," said Ginny, "We've stopped." She craned her neck to see out of the small window. "I think we're in Hogsmeade."

"Oh," said Draco. _So?_ he thought.

Then Ginny let out a shriek which hurt his ears, pushed open the door of the carriage and leapt out into the bright, piercing light of day. Draco winced.

The other occupants of the carriage followed Ginny more slowly, then Draco was left alone, squinting against the glare. He was only allowed a moment of respite, however, before Ginny's arm reached in and pulled him bodily out after her.

There were people assembled in what had once been the village square; Draco recognised some of them. There was Snape, looking at once irritated and ecstatic when Ginny leapt into his arms. Molly Weasley, sobbing. McGonagall, with—With...

Hazel.

Draco's daughter was put into his arms wordlessly. He felt more than directed his arms to tighten around her, some disused instinct reasserting itself. She giggled, and bounced and smiled and clapped, and Draco felt suddenly, horribly overwhelmed.

Then she kissed him on the chin, and he melted.

He kissed her back, on the forehead, and the private hell inside him receded somewhat for the first time since its construction. And the space it left behind was filled with a sudden gushing of some new feeling, something which felt an awful lot like Hermione.

Hazel grinned up at him, and he understood with a jolt what that feeling was.

He was home.

**The End**

**Author's Note:** Yes, it's really the end. I can't believe it either. Thank you all so much for reading and reviewing, it always means a lot when someone takes the time to say they've enjoyed my writing. I've written a reflecty-type entry on my writing LJ if anyone is interested (link on my profile).

Otherwise, au revoir, mes amis. It's been good fun:)


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